La Lecon Aprisse
by Madrigal
Summary: Deserted by Raoul, Christine's path returns once again to the Opera, the managers' manipulations and the dark questions posed by Erik's love. This fic has elements of both the musical and Susan Kay's novel.


_**La Leçon Aprisse**_  
_(The Lesson Learned)_

_for Laura,_  
_who didn't write the title_  
_but is nevertheless indispensable_

Christine banged each foot against the iron railing beside the steps that led to the flat she shared with Raoul. She knew, of course, that he would be lounging on the sofa upstairs and that he would not have done any kind of cleaning all day, although she had asked him to tidy up that morning. So she carefully knocked the mud from her shoes, scolding herself for believing even for a moment that a man born into money would be of any use around a house. _Oh, that we had that money now!_ she mused wistfully, climbing the narrow stairs to the second-floor apartment.

They were fortunate, now that they had married and Raoul's family had completely disowned him, to be able to afford even this shabby little flat above a shop. As it was, Christine had been forced to go out and find work to supplement Raoul's now insignificant income, toiling all day under an exacting and cross elderly dressmaker. Christine's fine needlework had always been of a high quality, but her tailoring skills were far from perfect and her hemming, her employer often reminded her, was deplorable. She was fortunate, she supposed, to hold any job at all; she was highly trained in music, but had few other marketable skills, and employment was hard to come by for a young married woman.

Raoul could very well have gone out and worked; but he too had no trained profession and recoiled from the idea of taking any position that he felt "beneath him." So he spent his time stretched out on the sofa in their threadbare little parlor, reading the newspaper and complaining about politics loudly enough for Christine to hear him over the noises of the kitchen. As she hurried down the hallway to their door, she realized and lamented the fact that she had not yet made any preparations for dinner. She had been late in rising that morning, and had been forced to hurry out into the rain so as not to be late for work. She had asked Raoul to attend to some simple chores around their apartment, but hardly expected him to have done so.

What she would have least expected, however, was the envelope tacked to the front door of the flat, which she discovered upon reaching it. Her name was inscribed across its front in Raoul's familiar hand, but she could not guess as to why he had left a note here. Occasionally he would decide to go out in the afternoons and waste what little pocket-money he had at a saloon with the few friends who would still associate with him now he was destitute – but he would rarely be so considerate as to leave a note. Most times he would give Christine no clue to his whereabouts, and she would be left wondering whether he would be coming home at all. She retrieved the note and, struggling briefly with the sticky lock, opened the door and stepped inside.

It was not until some time later when she recalled the note; having set dinner on the stove, she wiped her hands on her apron and opened the envelope. But the sheet of paper she removed was a more formal letter than she had been expecting, and the light in the kitchen was too dim to read it. Stepping into the parlor and turning up the lamp, she examined what was to be the last communication she would ever receive from her husband.

"Dear Christine,

For the pain I am sure I am about to cause you I most sincerely apologize; for though I know I have been the source of much stress for you over the past eighteen months, I hope that you know I have never wished to hurt you.

My feelings have progressed to such a point that it would be utterly impossible for me to continue our marriage. I am sure you will be neither unsurprised nor unhurt; but I am in love with Miss Hollingsworth, and we have decided to go away together. Forgive me my faithlessness, Christine; but I was ever a prisoner of my heart, and am powerless to resist what seems the hand of Fate guiding me towards a new life.

I am heartily sorry for any insult or injury that my negation of our marriage-vows will cause you. The fault and, I admit, the sin are both mine; and I shall make my peace with myself and my penance to the Almighty. As to the dissolution of our marriage, I shall neither ask nor take anything from you; all that was ours is now yours to keep.

As an explanation for my actions I can only offer this: that I did not know my own heart, as we stood before the altar together. You have been exceedingly good and dear to me, but I can no longer profess to love you. And since I am aware my financial situation has long been a source of unhappiness for you, I believe that you may feel the same. I am sure that once the shock and anger you undoubtedly feel have passed, you will come to realize this.

Goodbye, dear Christine –

Raoul."

Sinking to the nearest chair, Christine read and re-read the letter in disbelief. Of course she had perceived the occasional sly glance passing between her husband and Miss Hollingsworth, but had never suspected it could signify more than a harmless flirtation.

Insisting as he did upon living as though he had not lost his fortune, Raoul had continued to run in the social circles of the Parisian gentry as much as their tight finances would permit. Christine was often too tired from her working days to accompany him to late evening soirees, but she _had_ gone to enough parties to make the acquaintance of Diane Hollingsworth, a recent addition to, and all the latest rage in, the Paris social scene. Diane was an American, a New Yorker in fact, and rather a social climber in Christine's opinion. It was quite clear to her that this young heiress had come to Paris for the explicit purpose of flaunting her newly-acquired wealth to the end of capturing an aristocratic European husband. She had not had much of an opinion of Diane … and now she had even less, considering that she had accomplished her end by making off with Raoul!

And as for him! That the former Vicomte would have so little regard for her feelings as to write such a letter! Christine was beside herself with knowing what to feel … although as she climbed into bed alone that evening, she wondered for a moment that she did not miss Raoul terribly. She dismissed it as a symptom of her anger, though, and turned over to try and get some sleep. Husband here or husband gone, she must go to the shop tomorrow!

*

It would be weeks before Christine began to truly understand the ramifications of Raoul's departure. She had assumed that with only herself to support, she would be able to manage quite well; but she soon realized that even without her husband to cater to, her own income was barely enough to feed and clothe herself. And as if this blow were not enough, her situation was to worsen further upon their landlord's discovery of Raoul's change in living arrangements.

"I am sorry … er … Madame," he stammered, as if he were uncomfortable and unsure what to call her; "but I cannot permit you to stay here if your husband is gone … he was the one who signed the lease, you see, and … er … a single woman is … well, a _liability_, you understand …"

"Indeed," Christine had replied sharply, opening the door for the older gentleman with little room for doubting the meaning of the gesture. "In that case, Monsieur, I shall stay out the remainder of the rent I most recently paid you … I say _I_, you recall, because it was I and not my husband who delivered to you the rent each month! But no matter – I shall not remain any longer than the time for which I have paid; and if I am gone sooner I shall expect the balance returned to me. Good day."

Her voice had been firm in dismissing the landlord, but the moment he was gone that firmness disintegrated; she crumpled to the carpet with her back to the door and sobbed. Whatever was she to do now, and where could she go? There was no finding a new flat in this neighborhood – the rents were far too high, she knew that now. And if she were to go too far, she would be confronted with a greatly increased distance to walk to work … but a new job was not possible either, for vacancies were hard to come by and she had few skills to recommend her …

But … perhaps, an _old_ job might do …

_No_, she told herself as she wept into her hands on the floor of a flat she could no longer afford; _I must not think of it!_ She could not bear the humiliation of returning to the Opera, of demeaning herself to the managers in the hopes of regaining her old job. And yet … she _had _been able to afford a small apartment on what she had been paid as a chorus girl – and though out of practice for that of a diva, her voice was certainly still good enough to pass their auditions …

Oh, such misery – that Raoul should have swept her from the Opera with promises of money and comfort, and then leave her to go back there in search of the same! The irony would not escape them, and how they would laugh at her expense! But, drying her tears with resignation, Christine admitted to herself that pride was among the luxuries now beyond her means. She must eat – and so she must prepare herself for the insults and embarrassment, and re-apply to Firmin and André for her former job.

*

The following morning Christine Daaé, dressed in one of the last remaining good gowns in her wardrobe, arrived at the Opera Garnier. She had done herself up as well as she could, hoping to give her air a less-desperate feel; it was bad enough that she was a supplicant, begging for employment. But when she applied to the concierge – a man she had mercifully never met before – she was rather rudely received.

"I am sorry, Madame," he said with a slight lift of his nose, "but Messrs. Firmin and André are far too busy today to be taking _walk-in_ appointments."

The man's arrogance was insufferable, and although it would have quite repulsed Christine as a rule, today her nerves were strung very tightly. It was absolutely impossible for her to have come all this way – and on foot, not being able to afford a cab! Oh, the pains she had taken not to muss her dress! – to be turned away before even facing the dreadful management. Drumming up what she could of her dormant acting skills, she replied with a stamp of her foot,

"I am sorry for _you_, Monsieur, that you do not recognize one of this company's greatest divas! But I do not recall _your_ being here during my tenure, so perhaps your rudeness is somewhat excusable. Nevertheless, I have come to see Firmin and André, and I _shall_ do so regardless of your permission. Now will you announce to them that one of their former leading ladies has returned for a visit, or must I be forced to recount your of lack manners in turning me away?"

Her theatrics seemed to cow the man, for he led her sheepishly to the managers' door. "A moment, if you please, Madame," he implored, slipping inside to announce her.

The door to the managers' office was as thin as it ever was, and Christine could hear the exchange ensuing within. "Messieurs, a visitor for you …"

Christine could almost hear Firmin's gesture of dismissal. "We are really quite busy today, Renaud."

"But, Monsieur Firmin … she says she was once the _prima donna _here."

Firmin made an impatient sound, but André attempted politeness. "Indeed?"

The concierge lowered his voice, but Christine could still hear him as he hissed, "She seems to have a rather bad temper, Messieurs. I did not like the idea of turning her away."

Now Firmin's interest was piqued. "Really?" he responded, as if with raised eyebrows.

"Richard!" André squealed, clearly discomfited. "You do not suppose it could be … La Carlotta!"

"Only one way to find out," replied his partner. "Show her in!"

The door to the office opened, and the rattled-looking concierge waved her inside; he scurried away quickly, however, as if undesirous to overhear what was to pass between the three. It was well that several moments of dumbfounded silence passed as Firmin and André beheld Christine, for she would not have liked the concierge to hear what happened next.

Firmin threw his head back and howled with laughter. "God in heaven!" he nearly shouted. "To think that Renaud described our caller as a woman of foul temper! I must know, Madame, what you said to frighten him so. It is quite humorous …"

Christine said nothing, only trembled with her own humiliation and apprehension. But the worst had happened – he had laughed at her – and now she must go ahead with her purpose!

André broke the silence by moving around his desk to clasp her hand briefly. "Madame … may I ask to what we owe the pleasure of your visit?"

She took M. André's hand gratefully; he had always been the kinder of the two. But even his reception could not rid her voice of trembling as she replied, "I have come … to see about a job."

André was understandably surprised, and Firmin leapt from his chair. "A job, Madame? When you dropped us so unceremoniously over a year ago?"

"I know," she answered, struggling not to let her eyes betray her embarrassment. "But I have not come to have events of the past thrown in my face. I have come to see if my former position might be regained."

"Insufferable presumption!" Firmin cried. "You cannot expect to just walk out on us – in the middle of your contract, no less! – and then to just as suddenly re-emerge as though nothing were amiss! 'Welcome back, hope you had a nice holiday, now take to the stage' – is that what you were thinking? Come now, Madame – surely!"

Insulted by his crass words, Christine responded bitterly, "Oh, come off it, Monsieur! I have been reading the papers – I know that this company has not had a decent leading lady since I resigned the position! Surely you must see my returning would be a profit to all concerned?"

But he was quicker, and had more tricks up his sleeve than she. "I have been reading the papers too, my dear; and you cannot believe us unaware of your current state … " he answered her with a sneer, "Madame le Vicomtesse …"

She could not help but color at this rude awakening. Indeed, she had hoped the society and gossip columns were beneath his notice; for both had heartily enjoyed the story of Raoul's departure. But she squared her chin and said, "Very well then – so it is clear we need each other."

"No," Firmin shot back, returning to his seat and looking away from her back to his account ledger. "It is _you_ who need _us,_ and I cannot claim to be a charitable man."

"Richard – really!" exclaimed André, who had been speechless through his partner's tirade but who could not keep silent in the face of such rudeness.

"Please, Monsieur," Christine exclaimed, turning to the more sympathetic manager in desperation, "there must be some way we could negotiate … I will return to my place in the chorus, or the corps de ballet … anything, Monsieur, please!"

Across the room, Firmin's account book closed with a thump. Both André and Christine watched him carefully as an almost wicked smirk played across his lips.

"I do believe there might be … _something …_"

This was clearly bait of some kind; but Christine rose to it with what dignity she still clung to. "Yes, Monsieur?"

Firmin rose, shot a look at André and, folding his arms, began to pace the floor. "Your friend, Madame – the Phantom – had been relatively quiet following your departure from our company." Christine made as if to protest – whether to the phrase "your friend" or to the very mention of Erik at all was unclear – but he raised his hand to silence her, and spoke on. "We had hoped, when he went so long unheard-from, that he had quitted our theater entirely … However, in more recent months, he has once again made his presence known through his typical means – commanding notes, small destructive pranks, shadows thrown against the scenery, that kind of foolishness. He has even managed to begin exacting his "salary" from us again, despite all our attempts to foil him! We have been able to keep him out of the papers thus far … but I am afraid that, at the rate at which his manifestations are increasing, that will not be possible for much longer."

He paused, and Christine struggled to pull herself out of the whirlpool of emotion that had swallowed her with his first mention of Erik. Of course she had thought of him as she resigned herself to returning to the Opera – but she had hoped that his resolute farewell to her that last night in the cellars had meant that he would leave there, and go out into the world to seek some other and more productive outlet for his genius.

She had, in fact, thought of him many other times before today, especially in the more trying times of her marriage to Raoul. His final words to her figured in so many of her daydreams that she had often worried these thoughts constituted unfaithfulness to her husband. Oh, the irony now that the true indiscretion had come to light! But what could Firmin mean by speaking of Erik to her? Surely … surely they could not mean to ask her …

"Monsieur," she ventured cautiously, "would you please make yourself plain? What do you propose?"

That same disconcerting half-smile spread across the manager's face. "I propose to offer you your job back, my dear – along with all its amenities, salary, dressing room, etcetera. You shall be our _prima donna_ again – but there is, of course, a condition."

"And what is that?" she asked, her voice as hurried as her pulse.

"That you bait the trap that will bring the Phantom's career to an end at last."

Christine felt dizzy, as though she would swoon; as if through water, she heard André call her name and felt him place a chair behind her. She fell into it, overcome.

_If he is still here … oh, why is he still here? Does it mean that he never cared for me, that I was just a trifling amusement in his long stretch of darkness-filled years?_

_If he loved me still, why did he not ask me to stay …and why did he not leave here! Is it that he cannot separate from this place where we shared such brief beautiful moments?_

_When I nearly delivered him into their hands once before – only to have him send me away, thinking it would make me happy …_

_When I feel a reunion with him is the only and yet the last thing I want now …_

"Please," she finally cried out, her sob bursting from her throat like a tidal wave of confusion; "do not ask that of me – I cannot, do you understand, I cannot!"

"Madame, please," André sniveled, thrusting his handkerchief at her; "please, your safety would be our utmost concern – you would be in no danger! Please, you mustn't overexcite yourself …"

"No, pray don't," Firmin added dryly; "you will need your energy for rehearsal."

"Monsieur," Christine replied in a terrible voice, fixing Firmin with her most fervent glance, "I beg of you not to place me in this position. Please, think of some other condition …"

He waved her words aside. "But you are useless to us otherwise, my dear. Our current leading lady is, of course, nowhere near your equal as an artist; but she fills the seats easily enough, and I seem to recall that your ballet was rather clumsy and uninspired. Besides, just think – to face him again is inevitable for you. Surely, if you were to return to the stage in even the most unobtrusive capacity, he would rematerialize to be beset you as he did before … and this time there is no Vicomte to come to your rescue. So you see, Madame …" He seated himself at his desk again and propped his feet upon it. "… there is no other way."

His words rang to the very bottom of her soul. There _was_ no other way … for her to make a decent living, for her to find any small degree of personal fulfillment, for her to go on day to day without going mad, but to return to her music. Beasts! – that they would dare to make such an awful, deceitful demand! But she was desperate, and knew no other course of action.

Still weeping, she accepted from Firmin's extended hand the key to her old dressing room.

*

Christine did not sleep at all that night, despite the fact that she found all her old furniture still in place, including the battered couch where she had spent many nights before she could afford a flat and where she had planned to sleep until she could again. It was childish, she knew, but she could not turn down the lamp; the darkness frightened her, and every tiny sound from off somewhere in the vast basements of the theatre made her heart nearly stop for panic. And as though the nighttime sensations of the Opera were not terrifying enough, what little light her lamp gave threw weird shadows against the walls and distorted her reflection in the huge mirror.

That dreadful mirror! She coaxed and caressed it, pressed each inch in search of a secret switch to open it, even pounded on it when it would not yield to her. Could it possibly be made of something other than glass? It would not shatter, even when she beat upon it with her fists …

She did not know why she wanted the mirror to open, nor even what she would do if it did. Though she had thought she understood how things stood between Erik and herself when she reluctantly allowed Raoul to pull her into his carriage eighteen months ago, she felt suddenly overwhelmed and confused. And now she sat alone in her dusty old dressing room, enveloped in the darkness that had once felt safe and full of _him_, and which now felt only cold and filled with a thousand tiny horrors …

But even if he _had_ sent her away with resolve – even if his goodbye had been a rejection of the agreement she had offered, and even if he no longer cared where she was in the world and what had befallen her, how _could_ she betray him a second time? Or would this not be the third time, or more; he had offered her the fruits of his genius, all the passions of his bottomless soul, and she had delivered him into the hands of his enemies and departed with Raoul! Oh, she had been such a horrid little lying Judas – and now, what she had agreed to do ...!

And yet – there had been moments – yes, Erik _had _frightened her. That was why this darkness was so dreadful; it swam with memories of his anger, his weeping and his violence. There was no way of telling how he might receive her now … and he had been up to his old tricks again; perhaps he truly _was_ dangerous …

These thoughts could not bring Christine peace, nor reconcile her to the bargain she had made. She spent the night sleepless, and when morning came she faced the Opera's company – many of whom remembered her and murmured over her return – with a stoicism born of fatigue and misery.

*

When Christine's voice raised in practice fell upon his ears for the first time in eighteen months, Erik did not at first believe them – they had lied to him before. After she had left, each tiny sound of the theatre, its echoes and its settlings, all sounded in his ears as the hints of Christine returning to him. Dear God, how she had looked at him over their last goodbye …!

But soon enough the papers brought the wretched, eventual tidings: the publication of the marriage-banns had nearly undone him, and had the paper not been brought to him by the gentle hand of the Daroga of Mazanderan he might have done something rash. But Nadir, as always, was a calming force, akin to the strong and steady hand that guides a vessel through a gale. He had held on tightly as Erik raged at the news, then remained for days to help him set his house to rights again.

Nadir had tried to convince him to come away from the Opera – to stay with him, perhaps, or to find a private flat of his own. "You have the money to spare a hundred times over, Erik," he had said; "and there is a life waiting to be made for you out in the world. You must not bury yourself here now that she is gone."

But Erik had insisted upon keeping his own counsel and living as he wished, and that meant staying where he was. Nadir became resigned to it eventually, and all these months later still came to visit often.

Erik was grateful for the Daroga's friendship, and allowed himself to grow comfortable once again in the relationship with his old comrade; but he did not share with him the news of The Phantom of the Opera's return. He was keenly aware, even as he delighted himself in the construction of little pranks to play upon the cast or the composition of scornful notes to the managers, that Nadir would not approve of this amusement. He believed it harmless, though, telling himself that it was strictly for the entertainment of his idle mind. "It does not mean I will be repeating my mistakes," he assured himself, though he did not find himself terribly convinced.

So when he heard Christine's voice drifting down from the stage into the cellars of the theatre, he could not believe it at first. Surely it was only his mind playing tricks on him, falling so far into the game of being The Phantom as to imagine hearing His long-departed muse. But one afternoon he heard it so clearly, soaring over the chorus as the company rehearsed, that he was compelled to assume his old vantage-point in Box Five to observe and glean what he could.

Certainly that was her, standing towards the center of that mottled crew of pathetic vocalists, shining from their midst like a diamond in the rough. But "rough" could hardly describe her: she seemed thin, sallow and unpolished, a far cry from the elegant Mademoiselle Daaé who had captivated him. And her voice was in a state of nearly unforgivable disrepair! Why was she back, and in such a state? And however were the answers to these questions to be learned, without precipitating the inevitable – a second _disaster beyond all imagination_?

*

Firmin's plan was as simple as it was cruel: they would plan a gala, some spectacle with which Christine could be made much of, and when the Phantom came to gaze upon his former pupil, he would be hauled away in irons. The managers seemed to harbor no doubt that their adversary would come; and the kind-hearted André, still somewhat sorry that Christine was being forced to participate in a plot that clearly caused her discomfort, carefully attempted to prepare her for the expected meeting.

"The gendarmes will be constantly present, Mademoiselle; and your safety is of course our most paramount concern. You will never be entirely alone; someone will always be watching, and when he shows himself we will strike as quickly as possible."

As the days and weeks passed, and this talk began to seep into Christine's mind, her confusion began to clear in the favor of Firmin and André's assessment of the situation. That Erik had remained at the Opera after her departure seemed to indicate that he did not care for her any longer, if he ever had at all … perhaps it was better, that he be caught and stopped …

_And yet what was he doing – frightening silly chorus-girls, aggravating two managers who were easily aggravated – that was so harmful, that needed so desperately to be stopped?_

"Must we go on with this gross charade?" she implored Firmin one afternoon when they had pulled her from rehearsal to speak with them in their office. "Can there not be some other way?"

Firmin pressed his fingers to his temples. "We have discussed this more times than I care to recall …"

André jumped in, seeing his partner's temper rising and hoping to stave off a scene. "We know this is hard for you, my dear … but as I have told you many times, there is really nothing for you to fear; he shall not carry you off again, I swear it."

"That isn't it," Christine cried, fumbling for her handkerchief; "just the thought of trapping him in this way makes me feel physically ill!"

Firmin brought his hand down hard on his desk. "Madame, I have quite had it with your theatrics. One would think that you _cared_ for the creature to listen to you carry on! I want no more resistance – the condition of your employment here stands!"

The interview ended there, as Christine could see that the managers would not yield no matter how she addressed them. But she mulled over Firmin's final words, and wondered what could lie beneath her trembling and her tears, hidden even from herself. She could not explain to the managers why the idea of harming him caused her such guilt and grief, any more than she could navigate the tangled passages of her own heart.

*

Although Christine had tried and failed to gain entry to the labyrinth through her mirror on the night she first returned to the Opera, she could not say with any certainty that she had intended to orchestrate a meeting with Erik – nor did she know what she would say, even now, should such a meeting occur. She was too preoccupied puzzling over the mystery of her feelings for him, wondering how she could betray a man who had once cared for her so much – and for whom, she now admitted, she had cared too; agonizing over how he could have so neatly packed her away and forgotten her – for he must have, to stay here and continue living as though they had never kissed! Try as she did to understand, she almost resented him for simply going on as he had … and somehow, this made the managers' plan more palatable.

It was late one night, several weeks before the gala was to take place, and she had performed quite poorly at rehearsal that afternoon. But staying as she still was in her dressing room, she was able to slip into the auditorium after all the others had gone home, for a bit of private practice. The piano stood on the stage, and after playing a few rough bars she began to sing.

Her voice was, however, quite out of practice. Raoul had naturally not permitted her to continue cultivating her talent after their marriage; even though it seemed he had won the battle for Christine's heart, he would have no reminders of his old adversary – and his wife's voice was the sharpest one. As for her, believing her marriage and subsequent financial troubles had converted music into nothing more than an amusement for her, she had allowed her instrument to fall into disrepair. Her use of it until just recently had been casual and infrequent; yet now that she was to reassume her status as _prima donna_, she must somehow regain her former skill. She had been trying diligently since her arrival here, but her tone still remained weak and her performances uninspired.

Quickly becoming frustrated with herself, she drifted again to the piano and played a few more notes, thinking to start again with a more simple exercise. But the one that came instantly to her fingers was one of Erik's devising; and, wishing for a rash moment that she had not allowed all his valuable teaching to go to waste, she plunged into the familiar notes of one of the exercises he had used to refine her tone. Perhaps it would work again, even though he was not there to help her … and even though, she thought with indignation, he appeared to no longer care for her …

But as she worked through the pitches, she began to hear a soft countermelody … at first she thought she was imagining it, but presently it was loud enough to make her catch her breath and turn her head, seeking its source. There was only one voice that could ever effect her in the way she now felt herself being affected; her heart hammered and her mouth went dry, a mingling of fear and anticipation …

"Erik," she called out, not knowing whether it was right or wrong but only that he was somewhere nearby and that she was beside herself with wanting to see him; "I know you're there …"

The voice had stopped abruptly at the moment she ceased her own song, and at first only a tense stillness answered her call. But finally, a slight movement from the Grand Tier – and suddenly the white gleam of Erik's mask emerged from the shadows, and she could make him out standing at the balustrade of Box Five, his pristine glove resting lightly on the carpeted edge.

At first he said nothing, and Christine held her breath. It was both terrifying and yet dizzying, frightening and exhilarating, to be one again so near to him. She could not define the sensation that swarmed through her blood as he finally greeted her; softly, he whispered, "Christine."

He was as still as a statue and calm as a placid pond as he stood looking down at her; and she was torn between this image of him, and the picture the managers had painted of a dangerous madman. She wanted him to speak to her, to assure her of the soundness of the memories that now flooded back over her, her memories of her maestro as a deliberate and gentle man – and a tentative one, whose very touch was never given unless asked for.

But as for that man, he was too much of that uncertainty now, as he stood gazing down at her; but he did his best to conceal it beneath a veneer of coolness, the Phantom's façade in which he had learned to shroud himself expertly against pain of any kind. He could not understand why she had returned, and though he ached to embrace the conclusion that it was because she loved him after all, he forced himself to remain aloof. He said nothing more to her, then, and waited instead for her to explain herself.

But she did not. "Erik," she said to him finally, unsure as to why but certain that she wanted him closer; "won't you come down and speak with me?"

He seemed untouched by her words – or at the least, unmoved. In his own mind, a vague beginning of uneasiness stirred; why did she offer no account? Why did she instead ask him to come closer, when she had never encouraged such nearness even after she had given him her kiss? Never stirring, he replied with his own question: "Why have you come back here, Christine?"

His bluntness startled her, and stung her ever so slightly. This coldness … she had tried to teach herself to believe that he no longer cared for her; but seeing him again, it was simply impossible for her to conceive of him not falling to her feet, as he had that first night he had spirited her into his darkness! His chilly manner, then, served only to injure her pride. It helped somewhat to recall the managers' plan now. "I have missed the stage," she replied somewhat haughtily, "and my music; and the management was happy to have me back."

Again he seemed unaffected by her words. Secretly, he began to understand his unease as a tiny grain of suspicion … why would the managers simply have her back again? It was true that there had been little true beauty at the Opera since Christine had quit its stage; but the new leading soprano was not as horrific as Carlotta had been, and she performed well enough to fill the house with a respectable crowd at each performance.

Besides, there ought to have been other things in Christine's life now, things that should have kept her as far from here as possible … "Where is your husband?" he asked her pointedly.

Although she had been uncertain what to expect from such a reunion with Erik, this bizarre interrogation had thrown Christine completely off-balance. "He has left me," she stammered, not wanting to lie and yet unable to concoct a better way to express the truth.

His reply remained stony, for his heart was sinking with every sentence he extracted from her. Her return had had nothing to do with him at all – it was simply the act of a desperate woman! "So then, you return not only for music, but for money as well."

Christine was blushing violently now; his response had embarrassed and discomfited her, and bordered on insulting! She wondered what he could be thinking, when all that she could hold in her mind at this moment was how he had looked at her the last time they had been in the same room together! "Must we speak this way, Erik?" she cried, embittered, and yet empowered by the thought that she could, even at this moment when it seemed she was so powerless, begin a ruse that would lure him to defeat. "Won't you come down?"

As if he had not heard her invitation, or registered the tiny measure of falseness that had tainted her tone, he continued his assessment of her behavior aloud. "You cannot be here for art alone. Your voice is terribly deteriorated."

Something – a sudden thought – flashed in her mind to hear his criticism; and for a moment, whether it would benefit the managers' plot or her own need to know the reason for his behavior mattered not. "I have been a poor student, Erik, and I am ashamed to have you hear me. But I am to take the leading role in the gala, only a few weeks from tonight! Will you help me?"

He took a step back from the railing. "How can you ask such a thing of me?"

The sight of him retreating caused a sudden panic to rise in her throat, and she nearly wheedled in her frenzy to hold him in conversation with her long enough to bring him from his perch. "Erik, please … won't you come down to me? We must talk … it has been so long …"

But the hurry in her voice cemented his newborn suspicion, and he drew resolutely farther away. "No," he almost whispered, as though the word had to struggle forth. "There is something amiss here …"

"What can be amiss?" she cried, nearing desperation. If he left – oh, if he left then what could become of her, if she failed to perform the task Firmin had assigned! – for if he left her now, what were her chances of ever luring him out again? "I want to return to the Opera – and to your instruction, my friend. You made me great once, I am certain you could do so a second time!"

"And what other encores are you banking on, my fickle Christine?" A silence fell in the wake of his question, and he punctuated it with these final words: "I am sorry, but there _is_ something amiss … and I do not trust you."

Then as suddenly as the switching out of a light, his mask was no longer visible. He had disappeared.

*

The next morning, Christine was waiting by the door to the managers' office when M. André arrived. Perceiving at once her state of mind, he ushered her inside at once and summoned the concierge for some tea.

By the time Firmin arrived some thirty minutes later, the kinder of the two managers had managed to calm the jittery soprano; but Firmin was never a master of empathy, and grew quickly exasperated at seeing Christine sitting once again in his office.

"_Mon Dieu_, Madame," he exclaimed, clapping a hand to his ample forehead, "I shall summon a doctor at once. Either your hearing has suffered, or my reason – one or the other must be in need of attention, for I could swear we had this self-same conversation yesterday!"

His crassness re-awakened the anxiety that had carried Christine to the office that morning. "You don't understand, Monsieur …"

"I understand perfectly," he snapped. "It seems that _you_ do not understand – I am not willing to negotiate on this point! And frankly, I am beginning to think that, even if our plans eventually succeed, _we_ shall still have the worse end of this bargain if you are to never do as you are told!"

"But I have _tried_ to do it, sir – that is what I have been trying to tell you!"

Firmin sobered at once, and for a moment gazed upon her with incredulity. But over Christine's shoulder, André nodded affirmation to his partner; she had told him of her previous night's encounter, and although he did not share Christine's despair for the resolution of this crisis, he thought Firmin should hear of it from the singer herself. Finally, the greying manager cleared his throat and said, "Right then, tell me what you will."

As she recounted last evening's events for the second time that morning, Christine became more and more beside herself. Even the vague summary she gave to the managers was humiliating – for though she did not repeat what they had said to one another, there was no concealing the fact that Erik had roughly dismissed her. She trembled from a mingling sorrow and anger; that he would treat her so rudely, when she had done nothing to deserve such a reception! "So perhaps you will listen to me now," she concluded, her voice nearing a sobbing pitch. "I cannot lure him out in any circumstance; he wants nothing more to do with me!"

"This cannot be set in stone," Firmin replied, though he spoke more to André than to Christine. "He has been returning to his old habits slowly, but surely; and I cannot believe him capable of such changeable emotions. And it is clear that his interest once bordered on obsession! It is only a matter of saying the proper thing … of waiting and watching and striking when the time is right …"

"There is nothing I can say to him!" Christine burst out, suddenly and furiously angry at the two of them for discussing her as though she were not even in the room. "Not when he will not even speak with me at all! And I have given this all the heartbreak I intend … can you think me so unfeeling, that this rejection does not touch me! I refuse to go any further, do you hear me? I can't – I _won't _do it!"

"Not so hasty there, my girl," Firmin sneered. "I must disagree with you – if there is anyone who can bring him out of his hole, it is you. You will not give up – quite the contrary! Persevere! Press the issue! Persuade him in any way you can! You're a woman – surely there is _something_ in your repertoire that might change his mind. Bloody well tell him you love him if that's what it takes!"

The very idea of playing such a cruel trick filled Christine with a combination of horror and shame. "Monsieur," she gasped, "I cannot do that to him – I cannot say those words with such an evil intention!"

"My dear," Firmin replied, crossing his arms and shaking his head, "I have no qualms at all about throwing you out into the street like the _baggage _you are."

The insult made tears rise in Christine's eyes, and her smarting pride carried her out of the managers' office. But it was her own fright and helplessness to disobey that guided her through five cellars and down into Erik's domain, towards further insults and dismissals which she now regarded as eventualities after his cold reception of her the previous night. And yet, she felt that these jabs might hurt less coming from the mouth of her passionate maestro … though both he and Firmin had cut her down, of the two Erik was perhaps the more entitled.

*

Although she had known best the path that led to Erik's house from behind her dressing room mirror, Christine was able to make her way through the cellars of the theatre to the edge of the lake's jet black waters. From there she had only to skirt the lake, for though the lip of shore that ran all the way around to Erik's doorstep was narrow, it was enough to navigate with the guidance of memory and stub of a candle.

At the rocky face that concealed the front door to Erik's home, she paused; but searching her memory, she was able to find and press the hidden switch that made the stone swing aside. The silent motion was disconcertingly like being welcomed home. She shook her head to rid her mind of the thought … best to keep her purpose close, for that alone could assuage the guilt that threatened to rend her heart in two.

Erik and Nadir sat in the study of his subterranean house, drinking brandy over the remains of their chessboard. The white king lay toppled amidst the few pieces left standing; Erik always did like to vanquish the defeated enemy physically once the game of metaphor was won. They had been talking, strangely enough, of Christine … Erik had finally brought himself to tell Nadir of her return, of their meeting of a scant twelve hours ago – and of the nearly imperceptible inconsistencies he had sensed in her, which had given him cause to suspect and turn from the very person to whom he still ached to give his life.

"This happened under my very nose," the Daroga said softly, disbelievingly. "I am sorry, Erik, that I was not a better friend to you. I ought to have known, and done something –"

"No," Erik cut him off with a curt gesture; "I deliberately kept it from you. I was afraid you would think I was going mad. But I assure you, Nadir, I am not – she is here; perhaps even at this moment, here in this building, somewhere above our heads …" He craned his neck to gaze philosophically at the ceiling.

"But I am _here_, Erik," said Christine, suddenly and simply entering the room. Two pairs of eyes widened to behold her with two different types of alarm. Erik's stemmed from the inextricable knots of love and resentment that had been tied by jealousy and time; but Nadir's was far clearer, for he tended no affection for the flighty soprano since he had been forced to reassemble Erik's shattered life after her over-hasty departure. Instinctively he stepped forward and placed his body between his friend and the former diva, as if to shield Erik from whatever harm Christine might do him.

But she misinterpreted the Persian's gesture as one of reunion. "Monsieur," she breathed, extending her hand. "I had forgotten what friends the two of you were."

Nadir did not deign to take her proffered fingers; instead he eyed her with pointed suspicion, and replied, "But you and _I _were never friends, Mademoiselle Daaé."

Biting her lip, Christine curled her fingers and retracted her hand. She refused, however, to be deterred by the Persian's blunt speech. Instead she craned her neck to peer over his shoulder at Erik, who seemed almost to cower in the shadows behind him – but Erik could never be said to cower, and in truth he merely stood perfectly still. His eyes alone betrayed the many kinds of fear with which he was contending: fear of what she might say or do that could cause him further pain; fear that his suspicions would be confirmed and that she was here for some self-serving and cruel purpose; fear that seeing her again had awakened a hope in his heart that would only serve to drive him mad after her inevitable departure.

"Erik," she called out to him, trying to make her voice a line to draw him towards her. "Can I still claim a friendship with _you_, my teacher, my Angel …?"

"Do not listen to her," came the Persian's voice again, sharply this time as he threw the words over his shoulder. "She is trying to influence you …"

"And what do I know of the influence a voice can have?" she cried at the Daroga, her eyes flashing with anger at his interference. "Erik, please – I have come to make my apologies, and whatever amends I can. I need you now more than I have ever needed another person; you are my maestro, my inspiration and my strength!" As she spoke she became more and more impassioned; and for a few moments she cast aside her fears and uncertainties and thoughts of the managers, and spoke from the deepest regions of her heart. Ever so briefly, she allowed herself to speak unhindered by lies. "I have come to know how vital you are to the fulfillment of my dreams, and I must have your forgiveness for my wrongs, your training for my voice … and your love, Erik! Please give me that again, that precious treasure you once offered and whose value I in my youth and inexperience could not know! I have been as one dead since I left here, beginning to learn what I had lost but unable to take action; but I am free now, Erik … I am not beholden to my husband, nor will I be to anyone but to you, if you will only accept and forgive me!"

By now tears were coursing down Christine's cheeks, tears of contrition and revelation mixed with tears of a liar's guilt. She knew now that she loved him, and that she had damned him by saying so; she had made a pact with the managers and made herself their puppet once again. But she hoped for his forgiveness; for with that granted her, perhaps she could find the strength to break away and defy them …

"Erik," she sobbed, nearly drowning in her grief for her own sins, "please, won't you say something?"

He moved like a man in a trance, slowly circumnavigating the Persian, who stood petrified in the middle of the oriental carpet; he said nothing, instead focusing his strength on continuing the metered in and out of breathing that he should not collapse and perish in the face of such a remarkable moment. Finally he stood before her, his eyes burning into hers with a fire that nearly set her heart ablaze with love and guilt and misery.

Taking her hands in his, he spoke in a voice that was like molten lava – insistent, smoldering. "Christine … swear to me that you mean these things … I would rather die than hear you speak this way out of device or selfishness. Tell me at once what it is you want from me – or else swear you have meant what you have said. Either way you will have what you ask for; though I should live a thousand years, I shall never learn to deny you anything that is in my power to give."

"Then only a kiss, Erik," she cried in a cracked voice, the tension of the moment breaking down all her reason and hurling her into the throes of hysterics; "and your forgiveness, for _I_ would rather die than carry this burden of guilt any farther …"

He swept her into his arms and pulled her to his chest; to Nadir, who stood looking helplessly on, it seemed as though they had rehearsed this motion countless times, for it was seamless and almost beautiful to behold. As Christine spent her tears into Erik's shirtfront, he covered every inch of her forehead and crown with kisses; and when she had regained herself, she pressed her lips to his as though they were the very Cup of Christ.

Nadir wanted to leap at them, tear them apart and spirit Erik away to some safe and distant place; but he knew that Fate had locked them together long ago, and that his paltry will was helpless to separate what had been joined by some higher force. Whether it was love or misery they were destined to share was beyond his knowledge; but he reluctantly forced himself to slip from the room and leave them to begin their journey toward it.

For a few agonizing hours, the Daroga of Mazanderan became Erik's personal bodyguard again, standing sentry outside the study door through which he had carelessly allowed Christine Daaé to re-enter.

*

Christine had long missed her rehearsal when she slipped through the door and out of Erik's house, saying nothing to the solemn Persian in his vigil. She heard his footsteps, though, and the door clicking behind him as he hurried to assume the place she had surrendered – the seat of honor at Erik's elbow, to ask after and be told all that had happened between him and herself in that room.

For her part, she would never repeat it; what had passed there was as secret and inviolate as the traffics of the confessional. And though guilt gnawed at her, she told herself that she had spoken only the truth within the study's paneled walls: no words had passed her lips that were inconsistent with her heart. That credit she must be granted. All she had told him – of her unhappy marriage, of her poverty, and of her feelings toward him – all had been the truth.

But now, as she ascended from Erik's sanctum and his embrace, there was no more hiding behind grand displays of honesty. There was one crucial detail she had omitted: the managers' plot, and her part in it. _Now I must begin to live with my choices_, she told herself sternly, even as she twisted the tiny gold ring Erik had returned to her finger. _This disaster is of my creation, and has grown greater than my ability to control it …_

A tiny part of her mind plucked at her sleeve, admonishing her that if she would only reveal all to her dark beloved, he could snap the chains which bound her to the managers and set all to rights. But despite having purged her soul of so much, she was not bereft of reason, or of the bitterness her experience had cost her.

Erik had missed her, but when he came to accept all she had been and done in the time they were apart, he would resent her; the life they had spoken of building together would crumble like a dream touched by light. She could not bear the thought of such perfection moldering and decaying as her marriage to Raoul had; unlike Erik, she had experienced the consequences of love in a cruel world, and no longer had any grand expectations toward its power and everlastingness.

She had dropped a curtain over all the time that would pass between now and the gala; it would be a place apart, a time all their own, and they could spend and cherish it away from prying eyes. But when the night of the opening arrived, the curtain must lift, and she must play her part upon the stage that had been set.

*

" … yet she has gone again," Nadir prompted, hardly able to wrap his mind around all that Erik had imparted to him.

"Yes," his friend replied; "but not for ever; she will be back again tomorrow, and we shall begin our lessons. And this time, Nadir …" His eyes were somehow full of light, even in the dimness of the underground house. "This time I shall not be the only teacher."

Nadir repressed the urge to shake his head; but he could not stop his chin from dropping as he considered all that he had seen and heard today. There was too much; it was too overwhelming; and to see Erik set such store by it all filled him with an intense despair. "You have always called me fatalistic, my friend," he finally said; "but I beg you, this one time, see through my eyes …"

Erik's voice was soft, as if he were speaking from a long way off, yet disconcertingly clear. "I hear what you're saying, Nadir, and I understand your thinking … you think that I am giving in too easily to hope, that I am taking too great a chance in trusting her. But can you understand – can you only try to understand that my world has changed drastically in just the last few moments? Nothing is the same now, not even as it was this morning … what she has said has changed everything."

Nadir's glance was sideways as he regarded his friend, examining him carefully for the cracks through which to argue. "But words can lie, Erik," he ventured. "Just as easily, if not more so than actions, words can construct castles out of air. After all Christine Daaé has been and done to you, are you still incapable of believing her untrue? Only hours ago you were not – you told me yourself that you mistrusted her intentions in returning."

A small gesture of Erik's graceful hand indicated that his mind was only half-engaged in this conversation with Nadir. Even as he listened to his friend speak, he was wandering wide-eyed through impossible landscapes of hope … "Please, Nadir – if ever I deserved a reprieve from your iconoclastic judgment, go easy on me now. I know what you are saying makes good sense, and I know that your message is well-meant. I know that my trust may seem unwise to you, or to any other and less partial observer. But none of it – not reason, nor wisdom, nor even good intentions – none of it can compare to the way she looked at me as she said she loved me. I cannot have felt the effect of that look, nor heard her make that declaration, and allowed those sensations to sink into my heart, and then simply wave them aside! Can you understand it, Nadir?"

A moment passed where the Daroga said nothing, hardly knowing how to respond to such profundity of feeling. To express emotion to another person was something Erik rarely did; and he could not argue with his friend's desire to speak this way, regardless of his own opinions. But it made his heart ache to hear it; to hear Erik plunge himself so deeply into what Nadir felt certain was an illusion!

But Erik spoke again, bringing their conversation around full circle. "Nadir … you know that I mean no disrespect … but I know you _can_ understand me, for in the ravings of a long-ago illness I heard how you called out for Rookheya."

His beloved's name sliced into Nadir's heart like the stabbing of a brief drink to a thirsting man. Sadly, he shook his head, and laid a trembling hand on Erik's shoulder. "All right, my friend," the Daroga whispered; "perhaps I do understand. But it does not change my feelings about Christine Daaé. You told me once, after an illness, that my 'tiresome health' had become dear to you. Know this, Erik: your tiresome and fragile feelings are likewise dear to me."

To his relief and wonder, Erik threw his head back and laughed.

*

The weeks before the gala began to slip away like pearls off a string; and Erik cherished each day until it faded into an opalescent memory. His every moment was spent in Christine's shadow, watching her every move as though he would commit them all to memory; and he denied himself rest to watch over her even as she slept, whether it was in her dressing room or in her own room in his house, which had waited for her untouched since ... He was so enamored with the idea of her back again that he did not want to miss a moment of it.

At first it was difficult for Christine to see him, for it brought back in newly-intense waves her profound sensations of guilt. But his seemingly boundless energy began to captivate her, and soon enough she was rushing to meet him at the end of her every day, to tell him of her rehearsals and the little things that had occupied her time. And he delighted in her company, even the smallest details of her life amusing him, rejuvenating him, captivating him just as much as the lines of her face and the curls that cascaded around her shoulders.

As the much-planned-for night approached, Erik grew bolder; each moment he spent in Christine's company added to the change that was taking place in him, and it was hard for even Nadir to believe the alteration in his friend. He was pleased with it, of course; he had seen Erik happy only a precious handful of times in his life. But at what cost was this happiness to be purchased? – for still he could not trust Christine Daaé.

Erik knew of and dismissed his friend's skepticism. "Time enough will prove your error, Nadir," he said lightly to the Persian one day, one of the scarce afternoons when he did not seek out some place to conceal himself about the Opera auditorium to drink his fill of Christine's voice and the secret smiles she would cast towards his perch.

"I pray it will, Erik," replied the Daroga quietly. Only his eyes moved as he followed Erik's bustling movements around the room. "But to what can all this activity tend?"

"To the first step in that proof," he smiled. "The gala is only a few days away now … and Christine will triumph, I have every confidence of that. When it is over, she will have the name to take the stage anywhere she likes, anywhere in Europe."

Nadir inclined his head slightly. "I'm sorry, Erik; I do not follow your thinking."

"Do you not, Nadir?" Erik's voice had almost a lilt of humor in it. "Then let me be plain; there will be nothing to hold us in Paris any longer after this silly business is done. André and Firmin hope to make much of Christine's return for their own profit; but what they are really doing is cementing her fame, and enabling us both to escape their employ forever. Christine and I shall leave this city, perhaps even France altogether, after the performance … away from this place, I am sure we will complete our schooling in each other's heart and mind. We shall have a normal life together, Nadir … a normal marriage."

The Daroga was understandably surprised by this assertion. Of course he had understood – if not disapproved of – the depth of Erik's regard for Christine; but he had never expected that it would progress so far. He had always wanted for Erik to leave the Opera; but that _his_ advice had gone so long unheeded, and that such a move would simultaneously place Erik deeper into the control of Christine Daaé while separating him from his own sobering company, wounded him. Nor could he truly believe that the fickle soprano would have come up with such a plot herself; it smacked of Erik's handiwork, and his innate sense of drama. "Christine has consented to this grand escape?" he asked tentatively, trying to keep skepticism out of his voice.

"I have not asked her yet," his friend replied; "but I shall, tonight, when she comes after her rehearsal."

Nadir struggled with the image of Christine entering Erik's domain of her own volition, when so recently she had wept and carried on and had to be conveyed there bodily. "She does that often?" he questioned carefully.

Erik's answer was offhand, betraying a hint of irritation at the Persian's questions. "Of course. She knows the way."

Erik could not help being touched by Nadir's doubts; but once his friend's visit had ended, and he found himself alone in his underground home waiting for Christine's arrival, he allowed himself to resume the optimism that had carried him so steadfastly through these last few weeks. Without Nadir's insufferable cynicism present, he could hope without fear of reprisal. He knew that what the potential consequences were, of opening his heart to her so wholly; he was not deaf – he had heard the repetitious nagging tone of uncertainty in the Daroga's voice. But he chose to disregard it, to throw it and all the trappings of reason out the proverbial window. She was back – she was _home _– and nothing else mattered.

*

Erik's trust nearly brought Christine to her knees each time he expressed it; it came in great humbling moments that struck her with the impact of a tidal wave and took her breath away. When he spoke to her of leaving Paris, of forging a great career and a name for herself across Europe – when he looked into her eyes and asked her to be his wife! – she had nearly fainted from the force of his sincerity, and from the unfathomable depth of his love. She felt dizzy standing at the brink of it, and terrified – terrified that if she allowed herself to slip beneath its tantalizing surface, that the weight of her guilt would draw her downwards to certain death.

The managers' plot had failed … it had been born of the idea that she still feared Erik, that she resented him for his manipulation enough to build her career upon his ruins. It had hoped to make her an agent of his destruction by feeding on her childish impressionability and selfishness. In this respect it had failed, for by bringing her into the presence of her old maestro the managers had reawakened the Christine who ached to be a vessel of passion; they had revived the diva that had slept in the soul of the shrinking chorus girl. But in the end they had still succeeded, for that timid child was not yet dead; and, feeling dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of Erik's heart, she could not shake her former fear, could not force herself to throw off the protection of the Opera Garnier and defy the managers.

When Erik spoke to her of leaving Paris, the notion struck like lightning: she was not trapped, as she had thought, to toe Firmin's line; there were other choices, other avenues to pursue where she might be more the mistress of her own destiny. But these choices, oh heaven … they required she surrender herself to Erik's embrace. She had sunk into it countless times since her return, true; but still she held something of herself back; she could not give up that reservation any more than she could walk calmly into fire. He had once frightened her with the frenzy of his genius and of his jealousy; now it was the potential of his love that frightened her.

She had known Raoul's lukewarm touch, but Erik had never yet removed his gloves to press his fingers to her skin. She was afraid she would spark like paper to a match if he ever did; the loss of control terrified her, and the certain sinfulness of it all made her fear for her immortal soul, even as a tension beneath her sternum hungered for the warm smoothness of his skin …

Standing thus at the precipice of his dark and enticing affection, she suffered from incapacitating vertigo!

And yet she could not stop coming to him each evening, and up until the last remaining night before the gala she was drawn like shavings to the magnetism of his welcome. He was captivating in his overbrimming joy; he was consumed by thoughts of their joint future and the untold adventures that would unfold before them after the curtain fell tomorrow night. But her heart was heavy, and could not soar beside his; in what she knew to be the last moments of the fairy-land her half-truths had wrought for them, he was the burning red sun, she the pale moon veiled in the unexplained mists of sorrow.

Never before had Erik felt so effervescent; never before had he been so charming or self-assured as he greeted his beloved on this twilight of their former lives. He could feel the wrongs of the past draining away, and as he held Christine to him the sensation of her silky curls slipping between his fingers gave him wings. His heart was soaring at a dizzying height; he felt drunk on her nearness, and on the taste of the tiny and exquisite kisses she had granted him.

"Christine," he whispered into her hair. "You must have known there would be no lessons tonight."

"Of course, Erik," she replied, burying her face and her shame in his suit-front. "I came because I wanted to be with you."

His eyes were wide and trusting as he guided her to a chair and seated himself beside her. "My lovely one," he named her gently, a smile winding its way around the edges of the mask. "When I think of you wasting your youthful nights in these cellars, for nothing more than my company … I cannot be worthy of such a precious treasure. Why do you spend this time with me?"

She had not lied to him; she had come here because she wanted to, to savor one last evening in his arms before the day of reckoning dawned. She had tried to leave her misgivings and her indecision behind her when she passed through the mirror; they would taint their final moments, and she wanted nothing to spoil her secret farewell.

But hearing him speak was scalding her senses, and she was wracked with a new supremacy of guilt. The sweet devotion in his words – when she was to be an agent of his undoing! The reason with which she had so long suppressed the truth began to show its faults; the dam began to break. "Erik," she implored, clutching at his fingers, "please, don't talk that way. I don't deserve such praise …"

"Of course, modest beauty," he smiled, placing a palm atop her hand. Its warmth and softness would have soothed at any other moment, but now it only served to heighten her misery.

"I don't," she insisted, suddenly unable to stop herself from plummeting downwards into the arms of eventuality and confession. She bolted to her feet, nervous, trembling. "_You _are the one who has been constant … I have been fickle, and vacillating, and cruel in my selfishness!"

"Christine!" he interjected, the fine lines around his brown eye deepening with concern as he rose to comfort her. "What has brought this on?"

She pulled her hand from his and pressed it to her own cheek in distraction. She was afraid she would weep … in a moment she _would _weep … "How _can_ you be so kind, Erik? How can you just forgive all I have done that hurt you – and direct all the anger that I deserve into this love you give me with all the passion of your heart?"

"I know nothing of passion where you are not concerned," he assured her, reaching to reclaim her hand; but she gestured wildly and he could not catch her.

"That is not true, Erik – there must be a thousand things you would die for!"

Finally his fingers made contact with her cheek; he wound his arm about her waist and stroked her hair and shoulder in the hopes of calming her. "I can only think of one," he smiled, delving into her upturned eyes with his. "Tell me what is troubling you, my love – for my love you are, and nothing else occupies my soul as wholly as yourself."

Christine could barely follow the events that followed. It seemed that she surrendered control of her body as it exploded with the force of her pent-up grief; as she sank towards the floor, hysterical, part of her mind retreated into itself to find a quiet place where it could ride out the storm that was about to occur, and escape the blame for the harms that were about to be done.

Erik caught her as she crumpled in onto herself, and hurried to help her back to her chair. He stroked her hair, rubbed her wrists, did everything he could think of to calm her; but when her sobbing subsided enough for her to speak, her words were even more unexpected and horrifying than her actions.

The story of the managers' planned trap for the gala the following night slipped out almost without Christine's control or consent; and her tongue labored over excuses when her heart knew she had none. "Can you forgive me, Erik?" she whimpered when the tale was told, clutching at his hand which still held hers.

But he seemed numb to her touch; only the exposed half of his face revealed emotion as he struggled to understand what she had said to him. "You agreed to this … to set a _rat trap_?" he ventured, wading through nearly-incapacitating disbelief.

"I was alone," she cried, "and desperate – please try to understand, Erik! I know it was wrong of me – I knew it from the moment I consented – but I was trapped as well, and could see no other way …"

"No other way!" he retorted, suddenly jerking his hand from her grasp and rising to his feet. "What a heartless, wicked, _brainless_ thing to say, Christine! No other way – when you could have told me this _weeks_ ago!"

"I was afraid!" she sniveled, trying to regain his hand; but he snatched it out of her grasp, glowering down from above her like a stern statue. "I had no way of knowing how you would receive me … if I had told you, you would have not believed a word I said, and sent me away! You nearly did so the first night we met – you turned from me – and I _wanted _to be reunited with you, Erik. I want it still!"

"And this is how you show it?" he shouted now, what remained of his composure falling away.

"Yes – by warning you of what is to happen …"

"By confessing yourself my betrayer!" Everything about him was white now: his knuckles from the clenching of his fists; his exposed cheek from the utter shock of these sudden revelations; the heat of his rage, which assailed Christine's senses like a lightning bolt. "By admitting all of this was a grand theatrical lie! Oh, Christine, you are truly the actress I have trained you to be – no Judas ever gave such kisses!"

"Will you not listen to me?" Christine rose too, finding some source of strength in the indignation that was growing as he berated her. Of course she deserved some censure – but surely not this extremity of anger! Why would he not hear the truth crying out from beneath the words of her confession? "I have not lied to you …"

He had been pacing, hand pressed to his temple; but he whirled on her, his eyes flashing, in response to this remark. "Oh, no! You have only come to me with words of love on your lips, gilding the poison meant to kill me!"

Stamping her foot, Christine countered, "I never wanted them to hurt you – I _pled_ with them over and over again … I _told_ them I could not do it!"

His entire body tensed, as though he would roar with all his might. "_But you have, Christine! _You have done _exactly_ as they asked, despite any protestations to the contrary!"

"Erik!" she shrieked blindly, "you are wrong! Don't you see that I have betrayed _them _and not you? For now you know their plans, and can thwart them – you can take me away from here, as you wanted to!"

A silence followed, an eerie stillness comparable to the eye of a hurricane. "Take you away?" he finally asked, his voice low and disbelieving. But the winds began to pick up strength; the calm was passed, and the storm resumed. "How could you think I would want you now, Christine – when you have nearly delivered me into the hands of death a second time?"

She shook her head, not understanding him, not knowing what to say, and he reached for her, clasped her shoulders in a painful grip. "Yes, Christine, _a second time_. Do not deceive yourself! I mistrusted you at first, true – because you nearly killed me when you left with the Vicomte. You know this to be true; search my face – " he shook his head angrily at the ease of such a normal, human phrase – "at least, what there is of it!"

As roughly as he had taken hold of her, he pushed her from him. "So I was right to mistrust you in the auditorium that night. Had I only listened to my instincts then – had I not given in to this cruel hope – and it _is_ cruel_, _Christine; for you inspired it in me with such motives!"

"I did not!" she contradicted as sullenly as a child caught in a fib. "I just could not find a way to tell you …"

"My poor selfish child," he retorted, lifting her chin with a light touch of his forefinger. "You never _did_ quite understand that not telling the whole truth _is _telling a lie."

Tears rose in Christine's eyes at his rebuke; it was gentle on the surface, but beneath that façade it had a sharp sting. "Please forgive me, Erik," she whimpered, "for my all of my shortcomings …"

Though she had imagined these words would bring him swooping down around her, enfolding her in his dark embrace, Erik turned abruptly from her. "No, Christine," was his whispered reply; "I don't believe I can."

Almost disbelieving her own ears, Christine shook her head. She could not internalize his reply; it would not be absorbed. Confused, she reached out to lay a hand on his elbow. "Erik, please …"

"No." His sharp reply sliced through the air. "Leave me, Christine. You did so once, and I learned somehow to forget you … leave me to remember how to be as I was then."

Panic began to rise in Christine's throat; stubbornly, she refused to unhand him. Shaking his arm even as he tried to pull away, she insisted, "You cannot mean that, Erik! I know you love me – you can't mean to send me away!"

"You forget, my dear," he replied flatly, "that I did it once before."

"And you said it nearly killed you," she persisted. "You can't mean to do that to yourself – to _us_, Erik – a second time."

Bitterly he retorted, "But you are wrong, Christine – I have become ever so skilled at saying goodbye to you. It is a talent you have been so kind as to help me cultivate! I make you a star and you teach me to bear heartbreak. A fair and even exchange!"

"If we must make an exchange, let it be my apology for your forgiveness," she implored, steeling herself to his cynical answers. "There must be something I can say, or do …"

For a moment it seemed her words would reach him; his shoulders relaxed ever so slightly and his eyes cleared, opened their depths as if to pull her inside. In that moment he let it all go – surrendered to the admission that all he wanted was to believe her, to throw down his uncertainties and bind her to his heart with all the strength he possessed. She was so close – he could just reach out – only moments ago he _had, _had kissed her, hadheld her in his arms. _But how could he now, knowing …_

"I see," he said finally, broken at his very core by the knowledge that each kiss, each tender word, each caress they had shared had been overshadowed by untruths. "You certainly are brave, Christine – to invite the favor of a madman."

She was thrown off balance by the sudden change in him. "Madman … Erik, what are you saying?"

"Hours ago you would have handed me to Firmin and André on a platter – were you so afraid of me?" She shook her head futilely, made as if to speak; but he cut her short with a gesture, his motion sudden and unyielding. "So brave," he breathed, taking a deliberate step; slowly, with measured movements, he closed the distance between them.

Christine could not help shrinking in on herself; there was something menacing in his mien now, reminding her of the night of "Don Juan" and the sound of his voice then … he was moving towards her in a slowly-constricting circle, like a great cat around its prey. In her heart, she knew that this was the Phantom's trick – part of the façade he used to maintain the power he required for his comfort. But she could not keep her voice from trembling as she countered, "I know you are not mad, Erik."

"Oh?" he questioned dramatically, his inflection betraying – what? amusement? disdain? "And again your personal fortitude is displayed; most impressive, my dear. But I know quite well you believe my mind … unsteady … or else you would not tremble now." He extended one gloved hand as if to brush her hair back from her shoulder; but all she could think of was his hand so near her throat, and she started. "You see!" he exclaimed, as if the movement sparked some ignition in his mind; "you _are _afraid of me – and yet you remain! All these weeks you lived in fear, and yet you came to my very house and offered me …" He spread his hands in a silent descriptive gesture. "What is it, Christine? What draws you to me in spite of your fear? Is it the same as the managers' false righteousness – this desire to see a criminal mind caged? Or is it something … not _altogether _different …"

Christine closed her eyes and clenched her lips together; he was frightening her now. His voice gave rise to all the tiny hairs on the back of her neck, and with each sentence his deliberate motions brought him closer, his gestures increasingly invading the space around her. But the worst was his words themselves, their harsh edges and the truth beneath the surface that goaded her …

He spoke on, seemingly oblivious to her struggle for composure; in reality he did not care now whether she wept or screamed. The Phantom was in control now, and no display of hers could deter him. "Is it because I am dangerous?" he demanded; "does that entice you? When we touched, Christine – was your mind on the crimes these hands have performed? Did your petty cowardly childishness secretly lust for my evils – for the sins you feared to commit, and could only drink from me? Is _that_ the thirst that shone in your eyes, and on your lips, that I mistook for love?"

He seized her suddenly, and though she protested weakly he pulled her in closer. "Don't think I don't know your game, Christine. I do know it, and I am done with it – I refuse to be trifled with any longer. Now we'll see how brave you are …" Hovering only inches over her lips, he gazed into her face with eyes that glittered with rage and deepest injury. "_Now _we'll see how fast you can run!"

A sudden strength welled up inside Christine's chest from a source she could not define; perhaps she was stung by the tiny truths in his accusations, or angered by his deliberate attempts to intimidate and demean. Perhaps her own indignation was sparked by the threats that stemmed from his; but whatever the source of her motivation, she pulled herself from his hold and retreated towards the door. "You are frightening me, Erik," she bit out, her voice scarcely better than a bark for its dry and cracked fear; "is that what you want? To drive me from here and into the managers' office again, where they can pour their poison in my ear, convince me that you are better off in the hands of the gendarmes?"

He laughed, a disconcerting and resonant laugh, the Phantom's familiar bone-chilling chuckle. "Perhaps you had better consider where _you_ are better off, my dear," he replied, turning his back to her. "In the hands of those jackals? I wonder you have not learned by now that they care nothing for you; they simply want you to sing for their supper! But perhaps I should have learned a lesson too – that what you crave is instruction. Without orders you are nothing; you had no voice, no spine, no _purpose_ to your life at all before I began to teach you! And ever since, you have skipped from place to place making yourself the puppet of men." He waved a hand dismissively. "You can go now – I have no further want of you! – and _they _will be wanting you presently, to display yourself and perform your fine tricks!"

Struggling for some way to draw the conversation out, Christine cast desperately for the thing to say that would bring him back into her arms. "I shall not perform for them ever again," she replied expectantly, "and I shall leave the Opera in the morning ..."

"I care nothing for what you do or where you go," he said without stirring.

The words struck Christine with all the weight of the falling chandelier. And as inevitable had been its crash once the counterweights were released, so were the events that were planned for the following night. Suddenly her throat constricted; all at once she could see what a fool she had been, playing into the managers' hands. Once Erik was gone, she would have no one – no patron to arrange for her continued employment as a diva, or even as a chorus girl. Once he was gone, there would be no stopping them from throwing her out into the street! The full force of her crimes struck her in that moment; she had nearly been the death of them both!

And yet nothing she could say would move him! Her eyes overflowed with tears as she backed slowly through the door. "Please, Erik," she choked out, "promise me you will not attend tomorrow. Promise me that when the curtain rises you will be anywhere but the gala!"

"All this," he mused, as if aloud to himself, "and this is all you have left to ask of me?"

"Your safety is the only thing I have left to wish for," she blubbered, turning on her heel and fleeing his house in a flurry of skirts, "since your heart is now closed to me!"

In the silence that descended after Christine's exit, Erik stood unmoving for a long time, his gaze fixed on the door that had led her from his life. But finally the spell lifted; her hold on him seemed to loosen ever so slightly, and he began to gather a few things. It was late, but he knew the road to Nadir's even in the dark; and he knew that, no matter the hour, the Daroga would open to his knock.

*

Once again, the Daroga of Mazanderan sat calm and quiet as Erik related his tale. Carefully, Nadir swept all the hints of emotion from his face; he could not bear to have his reaction to these news be misinterpreted as triumph or gloating by his hypersensitive friend. Erik was agitated enough, repeatedly rising from the chair Nadir had offered him to pace the floorboards of the Persian's somber little flat.

"I know what you are thinking, Nadir," he said, his voice betraying his distraction, "so you needn't say it; I ought never to have trusted her. I ought never to have allowed her to wind her way around my heart …"

"I am thinking nothing of the kind," was the Daroga's measured reply; "only that I am profoundly sorry for your suffering, and that any help that is within my power to give is yours – you have simply to ask it."

At first Erik made no reply, but just continued his circuit around the room. But presently his steps began to falter; he mopped his brow; and finally his emotion gained the upper hand. Loosening his collar as he sank into his chair, he whispered, "I need air, Nadir … I believe she has choked the life out of me this time …"

"No," the Persian replied swiftly, even as he rose to lift the window sash and admit some of the cool night air from the Tulieries. "She has never held that kind of power over you, Erik; love her as you do, I know you _can_ live without her. I have seen it – and reaped its benefits nearly these two years. At the moment the wound is fresh; but you will see it through, my friend, and survive to see many years more."

Near tears of humiliation and deep disappointment, all Erik could do was shake his head.

Nadir surveyed him cautiously for a moment, but presently went to him and placed a firm hand upon his shoulder. "Begin with a new morning," he entreated him, "earned by a night's sleep. You look as though you have not slept in days, Erik. Come, let me arrange a place for you to rest."

To Nadir's surprise, Erik did not decline or even protest. As weakly as a tired child, he stood watch as his friend prepared a bed for him upon the sofa, and settled himself unbegrudgingly once Nadir had retreated into his own bedchamber. Though the couch was terribly narrow, and had a few springs working themselves free beneath the cushions, he still slept better than he had in months. The deep draught he had taken from Sorrow's cup had done its job well; he was exhausted.

*

Christine spent much of the night sleepless and stricken, alternately hoping Erik would come for her and weeping stormily when he did not. But near dawn, when it was finally coming clear to the heartbroken soprano that her beloved maestro would never be returning, she suddenly had an idea.

Where she had thought she had no options she had been mistaken, for there was one last choice that was hers and hers alone to make; and if it were made on a grand scale perhaps that could prove to Erik the depth of her regret.

*

Upon arriving at the theatre that morning, Firmin met with his partner upon the steps that led to their office.

"Good morning, Richard," André greeted him, the familiar nervous edge to his voice something more marked than usual. "I trust you have seen that the gendarmes have sent the guards you requested?"

"I had not noticed," replied he; but as they reached the top of the stair he allowed his brusqueness to bloom into joviality. "Ah, but here is a fine man stationed outside our office! Splendid! Good morning to you, sir!"

"Good morning, Monsieurs," the gendarme replied. "I beg your pardon, but which of you is M. Firmin?"

The managers made their introductions and the guard made them a polite bow. "Your servant, messieurs. But, forgive me … you have a lady waiting in your office."

"A lady?" Firmin lifted one eyebrow and cast a sideways glance at André. "And in our office, you say?"

"_Oui, Monsieur_," the younger man replied, apparently caught off-guard and baffled by the manager's jesting. "And she specifically asked for you, Monsieur Firmin …"

"Better and better!" chuckled Firmin, clearly in good spirits.

"You must excuse him," André said aside to the gendarme. "He has a peculiar sense of humor."

"I can see that," he replied; "and though she _did_ ask for him, she also said she would be pleased to speak with both of you. And there is a gentleman with her."

"Thank you," André sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Oh, and their names ...?"

"I did not get _his_, Monsieur," he answered, "but _she_ named herself Mademoiselle Daaé …"

"Daaé!" Firmin exclaimed, his good humor instantly disintegrating. "For the love of all things holy!" With that he burst through the office door, and was perfectly exasperated with what he beheld.

"Madame," he snapped in time with his feet pounding against the floor, "_what_ in Heaven's name can be wrong _now_?"

"There is nothing wrong, Monsieur Firmin," Christine replied primly from her perch, the chair before the manager's desk. "I have simply come to talk with you."

Gesturing wildly towards Christine's unintroduced companion, Firmin retorted, "And bringing … who is this, a lawyer?"

"Er, no, Monsieur …" The well-dressed young man positioned at Christine's shoulder took a small step forward. "My name is Émile Baissac – "

André, who had slipped quietly into the room, suddenly made his presence known; he had recognized the name instantly. "Of _l'Epoque_," he interrupted.

"Yes," the journalist said, smiling over his shoulder at the more shrinking of the pair of managers. It was clear that he was pleased to have his name recognized. With a small bow he continued, "And you must be Gilles André … a pleasure, Monsieur."

"Lovely, lovely," snapped Firmin. "But now that pleasantries are aside, will _someone_ be kind enough to explain all of this to me?"

"Of course, my dear Firmin," purred Christine, in a tone more cool and confident than the managers had ever heard it. "M. Baissac was good enough to accompany me this morning because I promised him a story – and at my expense."

The reporter almost grinned. "How could I refuse someone who so cheerfully submitted herself to the spotlight of the society column?"

By now, Firmin was nearly hopping about the office like a deranged gnome, so great was his consternation. André tried to maintain his composure; seating himself at his partner's desk, he addressed the pair stationed before it. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand what is going on here, Mademoiselle Daaé. Perhaps you would be good enough …"

"Of course," replied she with a haughty lift of her chin. "I have decided not to perform tonight."

At this, Firmin paused in his circuit about the desk to slam his palms against its top. "My prophetic soul!" he bellowed. "The lawyer I spoke of – you had better retain him, Madame, for this is absolutely insupportable! Your contract …"

"I am quite aware of my contract," Christine purred, her manner and tone quite beflustering poor M. André; he had never seen her behave this way before. "And before you begin to make threats, my dear sir, I wish you would hear me out – and remember that there is a member of the press present. Surely you would not wish … all of your _plans_ for this evening … to be aired in the papers?"

Firmin let lose a strangled sound of rage and fairly tore at his sparse hair. His partner, valiantly attempting to grab hold of what dignity remained in the room, made a small encouraging gesture; Christine smiled faintly and continued.

"I know that my going on this evening figured rather prominently in this evening's schemes," she said smoothly; "and so I offer this as the balm for the obviously difficult situation: M. Baissac has consented to write a story for today's evening edition of _l'Epoque_ detailing my shameful abandonment of my appointed role."

The reporter had been glancing from Christine to the managers, and back again. "Forgive me for feeling rather in the dark," he interjected. "But is there something else going on here – something _other_ than a last-minute resignation?"

"Surely you can see my offer now, good Messieurs," Christine concluded with an almost-smug grin. "Your former diva knows my part well enough to sing in my stead; and the audience will have come too ready to chatter over the scandal of my resignation to worry over the substitution. Why, perhaps your profits for this evening will exceed your expectations – for there must be seats unsold at the moment that will disappear quickly in the face of intrigue. You said so once yourself, M. Firmin," she added with an almost coy dip of her chin, "that gossip is worth its weight in gold."

But Firmin seemed too beside himself to make any reply; it fell to André to arrive at a decision. "Your reasoning seems sound enough, Mademoiselle," he ventured, "but I am not certain I understand … how is it that you are to profit from this arrangement? Surely you cannot expect to remain in our employ, after these hijinks."

"Of course," Christine said coolly. "Nor do I wish to." She shot a significant glance at each manager in turn, though it lingered longest on Firmin. "My only intention now is to give you some incentive to release me from our agreements. I offer up my reputation, then – I am not unaware of the stir my name now causes, and perhaps some will even declare that they have always known me as a fickle and temperamental artist. Either way, the attention to the scandals of our cast will undoubtedly increase ticket sales - for tonight at the very least. That increase should more than relieve me of my duties to you; and if you so desire, you may discharge me formally, at this moment even. That ought to add some seasoning to Émile's story, without impeding my own wishes for the affair."

"But what are those wishes, Mademoiselle?" André inquired with furrowed brow. "What can you hope to gain from all of this?"

"My freedom," sighed Christine, instantly more like herself as she dropped her gaze into her lap. "That is all; but it is enough for me."

Firmin had long ago quit the room, such was his state of mind; and so André was left to bear the weight of the decision alone. But he had never cared for Firmin's _use_ of Mademoiselle Daaé … his partner's exploitation of the young woman had seemed to him quite wrong, especially since he had no intentions of allowing her to remain on as diva after the Phantom was apprehended. Laughing, Firmin had said to him privately, "When it is all over, André, she will be paying _us_ for the privilege of remaining in the chorus …"

Smoothing his features as best he could, André gave Mademoiselle Daaé an assenting nod. Émile Baissac remained behind to interview him, hoping to expose more on the meaning of the mysterious "plans" for the gala; but Christine slipped from the room almost at once. The quality and duration of her ruse had been to her credit as an actress, but now it was all she could do to hold back tears.

*

Erik had not risen yet when Nadir left the next morning for the Opera. Having had little sleep himself, he had taken the liberty of examining what little Erik had brought with him the night before. He had always known Erik as a nomadic soul; but he had lived for many years in Paris, and it seemed to the Daroga impossible that his friend could simply quit his longtime home with so little about him. The small case Erik had placed in the corner beneath the hat rack contained only a few books, some hastily folded entablature, and wrapped in a bit of blue velvet a framed miniature of a woman Nadir did not recognize, and a necklace of fine stones that was too small for any human throat …

Ayesha! Nadir could not conceive of the depth of Erik's despair, that he had left his home without his one true lady love. She must have been ratting in the cellars when the final confrontation with Christine had ensued; for Erik could never have forgotten her unless she was absent, and he was in a severe state of distress. As much as cats disturbed Nadir – for even long before he had entered the service of the Shah-in-Shah he had never been able to bear the creatures – he knew he must retrieve Ayesha from the Opera. Her presence in his flat might make him uneasy, but surely she could soothe Erik's rattled senses far better than he.

And thinking of the subterranean house and all its fineries, and of Erik's fondness for the comforts he had amassed there for himself, Nadir knew he could not mean never to return to it. Perhaps years would pass, but he would go back someday; and it would never do for his furniture to molder and be ruined by dust in his absence, for his crystal lamps to cloud and his precious few mirrors to blacken with time. Knowing as he did the few secret switches that could grant admission to Erik's home, the Daroga knew also that he could close the house off completely, seal it tighter than a drum and safer than a vault until the day when Erik could bring himself to return there. Silently, he slipped out of his flat with a few drop cloths folded under his arm and concealed beneath his cloak, to shroud Erik's belongings in preparation for that day.

But as like as his mission was to funerary ritual, he was nonetheless surprised to find himself not the only mourner. Only moments after slipping through the door on the Rue Scribe with the key Erik had given him just after Christine's initial departure, he entered what he believed to be Erik's empty house and found himself face-to-face with the childlike soprano.

She had come there in the vain hope that Erik might have done as he had the last time she had left him – that he might have shut himself up inside the walls that his own hands had helped to shape, to mourn her loss in the blessed darkness. For _these _walls she knew and could understand; she had learned to navigate the twists and turns of the labyrinth, and though he might hide himself in its shadows she felt certain that she could find her way to him as long as he remained here …

But her worst fears were confirmed when she tripped across his threshold and found the house abandoned. She was on her knees yet, her face streaked with the sticky trails of tears, when she lifted her face from her hands to behold the Daroga of Mazanderan.

"Monsieur," she gasped, startled but far from displeased to see him.

"Mademoiselle," Nadir managed to reply, but his tone was icy. Her presence was the worst possible stumbling block he could imagine; for how was he to close Erik's house and spirit away his belongings before her very eyes? She would linger here, and follow him upon his departure, he knew; and how safe would Erik be then, once she knew his hiding place? Would she lead the managers and the gendarmes to his flat to carry off his friend? Had he doomed this man for whom he felt such deep solidarity, despite all of his good intentions? _Damn her and her hold on him! Why was she here?_

Christine raised herself to her feet, moving gracelessly within the encumbrances of her skirts; but the Persian made no move to help her. In fact, his coldness saturated the air; where only moments ago she had been able to sense in this room the vague scent she knew to be Erik's – ink, candle wax, a man's body wrapped in cashmere – now she could only feel the chill of the Daroga's eyes. "He has told you," she ventured.

"Erik is lucky to have one friend to whom he can turn," was Nadir's flat reply. He had less than no desire to speak with Christine; each second ticking by added to the boundless anger and disdain in which he held her.

But the sentiment seemed lost on – or perhaps simply dismissed by – the fickle soprano. "Then you know where he is …" she began, as if his tone had had no effect on her.

Such presumption was not to be borne! With a gesture almost Erik-like in its curtness, Nadir cut off Christine's sentence and spoke with an exposed edge to his tone. "Do not ask me, Mademoiselle. I would sooner die than tell you; and I would sooner die than carry him a message from you; and I would far prefer seeing you leave this place at once to any other alternative you might be turning over in your cruel heart. My business here this morning tends in no way towards you; and I would be grateful if you would leave me to it in peace."

The sharpness of this rebuke gave rise to tears in Christine's eyes; but she fought off her urge to make a bitter retort with a thought to the Persian's friendship with Erik. It was likely the Oriental detective's camaraderie alone that had sustained Erik through the nearly two years of her marriage and absence from the Opera. Wound her though he might, knowing what he must have been to her maestro – and knowing how fervently the Daroga must hate her now, now she had committed such an act of betrayal against the man _they both_ held so dear! – she could not rightly begrudge him even the cruelest of words.

"_I_ would sooner die, Monsieur, than cause Erik any further pain," she murmured, eyes downcast.

She had meant to say much more, but Nadir seemed to grow incensed at these words. "Not cause him pain, Mademoiselle!" he cried. "By Heaven, you _are_ a foolish and heartless child, as I have always believed! You cannot possibly hope to convince _me_ that your intentions towards Erik have been honorable. You have already all but proved them otherwise with the implications of your actions!" Composure taking a momentary back seat to indignation, Nadir ticked off Christine's sins on his fingers. "You have used him for the musical training you lacked to become a great singer. You have painted him a beast, and you the helpless Beauty, so as to capture Raoul de Chagny. And now that he has left you, you have looted Erik's very soul for the adoration you required to regain your self-confidence. I hope it gave you pleasure, Mademoiselle – to reduce to such a state a man of Erik's strength and genius. I hope it made you proud and triumphant to involve yourself in a plot to snare and cage him again, like some animal. Oh! I hope you have the heart that he assures me that you do, that you might someday suffer regret for all that you have done to him!"

Silently, Christine stood and listened as he spoke. Each word rang to the depths of her soul, and when he had finished speaking her eyes were brimming over soundlessly. He had the right, she knew, to lay these charges at her door; for she had been cruel, and selfish, and had exploited Erik's devotion to her own profit. In short, every sin of which the Persian accused her was true; how could she deny them, when their proof was in the stillness of Erik's now-abandoned home?

Nadir regarded Christine skeptically, as though he were expecting one of the hysterical outbursts for which she had become notorious. But instead the soprano squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and replied, "I understand you, sir, and know that I have earned your censure. For myself I ask nothing – no forgiveness, nor favors – but only that you promise me that neither you nor Erik will attend the gala tonight."

The Daroga was nearly taken aback by the sudden and audible sincerity in her voice. "I?"

Christine nodded fervently, as though the motion could right all the wrongs of the past weeks. "You are not safe either, Monsieur, for you are a known accomplice of his; I am sure that if the managers were to find you, even now, you would depart in chains. Promise me you will leave here unseen; for though he remains hidden from me now, I can take some comfort in knowing he is under your protection. Keep him safe for me, Daroga."

For a moment Nadir stood in silence, casting for something to say. Christine Daaé was surely a convincing actress; for although his better sense told him she was not to be trusted, something in her tone gave him pause …

As for herself, Christine knew she ought not to expect any display of friendship from the Persian; but she could not help but feel saddened when his expression remained stony. With a sigh, she turned from him. "I shall leave you, Monsieur, as you have asked … I have my own preparations to make." Looking back over her shoulder, she ventured, "I am not to go on tonight, you know."

Nadir suppressed his surprise and instead said nothing. Even if this sudden confession were true – and naturally he highly doubted any assertion of hers – why would she make it to him, of all people?

His cold expression did not change, and Christine took a step towards the door. But something soft and warm touched her ankle; she looked down and beheld Erik's Siamese cat winding its way around her feet. Gently, she gathered Ayesha into her arms. "You poor creature," she admonished her, "were you left behind?"

"I had come for the cat," Nadir interjected brusquely, and Christine glanced at him over her shoulder.

"If you will not be my messenger, Monsieur," she replied, "then perhaps _she _will convey my love to her master." She held Ayesha close for a moment, treasuring the silky weight of her body. Finally she pressed a kiss to the cat's forehead and surrendered her to the arms of the Persian.

The exchange brought Christine closer to the Daroga of Mazanderan than she had ever stood before. She could not help but notice the emotion swirling in his dark eyes, although his face was as unyielding as stone. "Love and deception cannot co-exist, child," he said softly as he relieved her of her feline burden.

Something in his gentle tone nearly rent Christine's heart in two. She had withstood the insults of the managers and even Erik's anger; but this soft rebuke was somehow the most painful of all. Turning swiftly on her heel to conceal the tears that had once again gathered, she hurried through the empty rooms and out of Erik's house for the last time.

*

Although Nadir returned Ayesha to his flat immediately after leaving the Opera, he spent much of the day out and about, investigating as best he could the management's plans for the gala. Surely enough, the place was swarming with gendarmes; it was difficult for him to escape notice amongst the lily-complected Parisian crowds, and his efforts to gain entrance to the backstage area to speak with Madame Giry were foiled by the excessive questions of a strapping young officer. Perhaps he could have stolen into the structure via the Rue Scribe … but the day was growing old and he knew that the theatre's interior would now be bustling with preparations for the only-hours-away gala. Ducking out as quickly as he could, he hurried home with despair in his heart. Erik's reign at the Opera had been somewhat troublesome to many managers, true; but it had been fairly harmless and, as much as Nadir hated to admit it, endlessly amusing. It seemed the passing of an era for it to come to an end now.

Upon arriving home, he found Erik on the sofa, the remnants of a rather expensive-looking meal upon the parlor-table and the scent of real Oriental tea in the air. Erik himself was poring over the evening edition of _L'Epoque_, so engrossed that he did not even seem to hear Nadir enter the room.

"I am glad to see you making yourself so much at home," he said, chuckling as he hung his cloak.

"What did you expect?" Erik asked, never taking his eyes from the paper. "Nothing you keep in your dreadful pantry was at all palatable … and your tea, Nadir! Honestly! Did you draw it directly from the English Channel?"

The Daroga's eyes twinkled with ill-disguised mirth. "I had never considered what a demanding house-guest you might make, Erik. Where did all of this come from?"

"I sent Darius for a few things …" Wine glass in hand, Erik finally stood to greet his friend; but instead of a handshake, he offered instead a folded section of the newspaper. "Have you seen this?"

Nadir glanced at the masthead. "_L'Epoque_? I do not read it usually; I find it rather sensationalist."

Shaking his head, Erik took a generous sip from his glass; his other hand gestured so with the paper that Nadir obligingly accepted it and glanced over its front page.

It was the society section, and one headline caught his eye almost immediately:

"GARNIER'S DIVA RETURNS … TO HER OLD HABITS"

"The morning of the Opera Garnier's much-publicized gala celebrating the return of Mlle. Christine Daaé to the Company yielded this reporter an interesting opportunity. Present at the very moment when the leading lady tendered her sudden and shockingly indifferent resignation, _L'Epoque_ has yet been unable to determine the reasons behind this scandal.

"The Reader may recall Mlle. Daaé's name from the strange affairs surrounding her stint with the Company some eighteen months ago. Although her curious behavior, mysterious disappearances and just-as-sudden reappearances initially revived the superstition of 'l'Fantome de l'Opera,' ultimately it was discovered that Mlle. Daaé's comings and goings during that time could be contributed to a secret affair between the singer and the eligible young Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, and the fervent disapproval of his elder brother, the late Comte Phillipe. Faithful readers of this column will remember that although Mlle. Daaé finally left the Company to marry le Vicomte, _L'Epoque _attempted to convey to her that she could not likely hope to retain such a lofty position long. Ironically, Mlle. Daaé's return to the Opera Garnier comes on the heels of the announcement of the upcoming nuptials between le Vicomte de Changy and Miss Diane Hollingsworth, Paris' recent American darling.

"Despite the obvious blemishes upon Mlle. Daaé's reputation, the management of the Opera Garnier were enthusiastic about her return to the Company. This morning, however, became the setting for a rather unexpected interview between Messrs. André and Firmin, the Opera's current managers, and Mlle. Daaé, whereupon she announced her intention not to perform this evening with very little attempt to explain herself. M. Firmin was vexed enough to storm out of his office, while M. André retained the composure to arrange for a replacement for the fickle diva. The Company's former lead soprano, Mlle. Sabine Hervieu, will sing tonight in Mlle. Daaé's stead.

"Despite further investigation into this affair, _L'Epoque_ has been unable to glean from any member of the Company the impetus for Mlle. Daaé's last-minute abandonment of her appointed role. One can only assume that, given her history, Mlle. Daaé is possessed of the particular temperamental personality often ascribed to by vain artists, and that the Management has proved itself quite foolish by the placing such a degree of trust in her commitment to perform. It is further this reporter's speculation that yet another romantic fracas may be about to emerge surrounding the rather callous and yet lovely soprano. However, with the elder brother dead, and the younger slipped out of her grasp, it seems Mlle. Daaé can have no further designs on the de Chagny family. What, therefore, can she possibly gain from this rigmarole but yet another black mark upon her already scandal-fraught career?"

Having already been informed of Christine's plans by the singer herself, Nadir was not terribly surprised regarding the substance of the article; nor, for that matter, did he disagree with the columnist's negative portrayal of the flighty leading lady. What did surprise him, however, was to see it all spelled out in black and white before his eyes – and to read something imparted to him by a woman he so distrusted so likewise corroborated by the press.

Erik, ignorant of how the Daroga had spent his morning, misunderstood his silence. "What do you make of this, Nadir?"

Until that moment, Nadir had never considered just how cruel Christine Daaé could be, nor how powerful her hold upon his friend truly was. Until the moment he heard Erik speak, and perceived the tiny flickering of hope in his voice, he had never considered the possibility that Erik loved her still, despite all the despair and resentment into which he had plunged upon her marriage, despite all the compounding pain she had heaped upon him with her sudden return, her mingling lies and confessions. But in that moment, Nadir found himself staring into the eyes of his oldest friend, watching him plead wordlessly for confirmation of the hope he still clung to. _Erik was asking his permission to believe Christine Daaé had thrown over the managers on his account …_

Nadir thrust the paper back as though it had burned him. "Nothing," was his over-hasty reply. "One cannot trust the press – nor Christine Daaé, for that matter."

But Erik caught the falseness of his tone, and countered swiftly. "There is something you are not telling me."

Turning away from his friend to hide his dishonesty – _may Allah forgive me! _– he denied the charge. "No, Erik."

"There is!" he cried, circling around to force the Daroga to face him. "Where have you been all day? Ayesha – you brought her back to me, my poor abandoned beloved – you were at the Opera, were you not?"

"I went to close your house," Nadir replied begrudgingly, not meeting Erik's eyes. "Someday perhaps you will return there for the rest of your belongings – the furniture and the like – and it would not do for it to be ruined by dust and damp. And yes, I brought Ayesha, although you know cats disturb me …"

"Do not beat around the bush with me, Daroga," Erik interrupted him brusquely. "You went to the Opera … and you saw her there, didn't you?"

Nadir cleared his throat, stalling in his discomfort. "The place was all hustle and bustle in preparation for this evening, Erik. I saw many people there."

"Damn it, man!" cried the former Phantom, taking his friend suddenly by the shoulders and giving him a nearly-panicked shake. "I will not be sidestepped! Tell me!"

Cursing himself for his poor acting ability, Nadir heaved a sigh and replied, "When I reached your house … it was as if she had come there looking for you."

Here Nadir paused, and when he did not continue Erik shook him again. "And?" he urged.

"Nothing," the Persian snapped, his anger at himself shifting quickly into anger at his friend. _Why must you make me tell you things that will hurt you?_ he admonished Erik inwardly.

"That is untrue," Erik countered sharply, the tone in Nadir's voice nevertheless prompting him to relinquish his hold on the Daroga. "Surely there was some exchange – what did she say to you?"

"Nothing of consequence." Nadir crossed his arms. "She was weeping, saying she had never wished to cause you pain and other such rubbish. It seemed to me to simply be a reiteration of all you told me last night …"

"But what of this?" Erik persisted, retrieving _L'Epoque_ from the floor where it had fallen, forgotten after their argument began. "What did she say about this?"

Nadir shrugged stubbornly. "She ventured to say she was not to perform tonight. I assumed she was lying."

"But why would she tell such a lie?" cried Erik wildly.

"To lure you out!" exclaimed the Daroga, his own patience worn thin by the discomfort of this conversation. "Think on it, Erik – she returned to your house to find you gone, and me in your stead … what trouble would she spare to deceive you by proxy? She told me her story, hoping I would tell it to you, and that you would come rushing back on the wings of a dream to collect her. And you would be walking into a trap! She admitted herself that the managers are ever on their guard for you – and the place was absolutely swarming with gendarmes, at four o'clock no less, when the curtain is not to rise until nearly eight tonight!"

Erik seemed astounded by such a tirade from the normally sedate Daroga; taking advantage of his rare silence, Nadir spoke on. "Can you not see their trickery, Erik? – you who are such an accomplished trickster? They are trying to lull you into their pretense, by any method they can procure … the papers, for God's sake? What kind of foolishness is that?"

"The papers often concern themselves with the gossip of the theatre," Erik retorted, though his mien was visibly crestfallen.

"It is tripe, written for petty socialites with nothing better to do with their time," scoffed Nadir, making no attempt to disguise his disgust. "And in this case, I am utterly convinced the story is fabricated – although I cannot find fault with the writer's rather derogatory treatment of Mademoiselle Daaé. If you ask me she got better than she deserved."

"But he claims to have been there." Erik's protests were becoming weaker by the moment. "Surely there must be _some_ truth to it …"

"Why must there?" Nadir asked, letting go of his anger to see Erik so discouraged. "Why must you seek truth in her words, now you know how long she has been lying to you? There need not be any truth to it, Erik … it is just another desperate display, another attempt at manipulation …"

Nadir had intended these words to be rational and calming; but Erik bristled. "And so might _this_," he snapped, taking up the anger which the Daroga had dropped. "Can I really trust you, Nadir – knowing what you think of her? How can I be sure _you_ are not attempting manipulation, when you have always disliked her and have done all you could to prevent me from loving her?"

Never had the Daroga felt so affronted – or so humbled, to hear his prejudice so plainly called out. "What are you saying?"

"That I _do_ love her!" Erik cried; "and all your wishes to the contrary cannot change it. Now will you tell me what you know – without editorializing – or must I go to the Opera tonight and perform my own detective work?"

Gaping, Nadir exclaimed, "Go to the Opera? Erik, are you mad?"

"Not you too!" Erik whirled on him suddenly, his voice ragged. "God, any accusation but that, Nadir – and from anyone but you!"

"Forgive me," he whispered. "I did not mean it."

Erik shook his head, made a weak gesture. "I know. But you do not seem to understand, Daroga … I cannot just purge her from my heart! I was angry when I left her last, true. But she could do anything – _anything at all_ – and still the smallest sign would make me hope anew. And this … oh God, Nadir … this is the only thing I can think of that could possibly redeem her. If she has really refused to participate in their plot … perhaps it comes late, but not too late to save ..."

"And what if she has not?" questioned the Persian as gently as he could, "and my suspicions are correct?"

Erik's reply was pointed. "Tell me exactly what she said to you."

Shaking his head, Nadir answered, "Nothing more than I have already told you."

Resolutely, his friend declared, "Then if you cannot – or will not – confirm or deny the rumor, Daroga, I shall go to the gala myself – to see 'what thereat is, and this mystery explore.'"

Nadir caught his friend's elbow as he swirled his cloak about his shoulders and reached for his large-brimmed hat. "I beg you to think better of this, Erik. It is certain murder if you show your face there."

"I never was one for showing my face, Nadir," scoffed he. "And do you think that there are not a hundred hidden places from which I can observe the stage? I go only to see if this is true – if she really has refused to go on. If she has, Nadir …" Here Erik faltered, but after only a moment's pause he spoke on. "Of course I know that the chance is slim – but if she really _has _done this, then perhaps it was done to prove something to me ..."

"I cannot believe her capable of possessing any truth to prove, Erik," Nadir insisted quietly. "Surely you must see, and share, this point of view."

Pulling himself from his friend's grasp and stepping resolutely towards the door, Erik replied, "I do understand it, my dear Daroga. But I can no longer trust anything – not words, whether printed, spoken or passed on – nor even my own intuition. I must go and see for myself. And if it is untrue … well, it shall not take long to discover. Until the end of my days I shall recognize her voice; I have only to hear a few notes and I shall know that she _has_ taken the stage and that this," here he gestured with _L'Epoque, _held helpless and crumpled in his fist, "was just one final lie."

Making a small bow to his friend, he sidled ever nearer to the doorway. "I shall return to you in one piece, Nadir; I swear it. I beg of you, let me do this … I shall never be able to maintain any semblance of sanity if I do not know build a scaffold of absolute truths around the space she has left in my heart. Please try to understand that, and forgive me what must seem to you an egregious foolishness."

And with that, he slipped out of the apartment.

*

After her disastrous interview with the Daroga of Mazanderan, Christine tripped up through the cellars, wandering through a tearful haze that somehow rendered its shadows and its looming forgotten sets less menacing. Finally she reached the corridors of the wings, and slipping into her dressing room, she spent a few moments simply letting the dear place wash over her. She did not know where she would go now, nor what she would do; but it was clear she must pack off, for though the managers had begrudgingly released her from her obligation to perform tonight, she knew it would be the last favor they would ever do her. Luckily the rest of the Opera was teeming with activity in preparation for the gala, and she was able to accomplish much of her preparations in solitude.

But as the afternoon was beginning to wane, the dressing room door was suddenly flung wide; the startled Christine reflexively lifted a petticoat as if to shield herself from impending danger. With no other attempt at ceremony, Monsieur Firmin entered the room and slammed the door once again, this time behind him.

"Monsieur," she gasped. "You frightened me."

"Forgive me, Mademoiselle," he sneered, emanating as much fury as his short form could manage; "but now, you see, we are alone; and in the absence of your reporter-friend, I intend to get the bottom of this matter once and for all."

Affronted by the manager's persistence, Christine lifted her nose ever so slightly. "You forget, Monsieur, that I am no longer your employee. You cannot issue any order now that I shall be obliged to follow."

"Do not play the diva with me," he retorted, "for it is clear you have breached your contract, and no magistrate could possibly see it otherwise. I have every intention of contacting a lawyer, my dear … so perhaps you can give me some reason not to!"

"What can I say?" Christine cried. "I will _not_ go on tonight … I know I cannot make you understand, but I will _not_ betray the man who once inspired me to such musical heights."

"Very well, very well," was his dismissive reply. "I should have known you lacked the strength of character to follow through with our plans. But all I ask is this: tell me I still have some reason to think we can get him tonight! Tell me this and I shall let you go without a fight."

Christine turned her back on Firmin to hide her tears. "I cannot predict _le Phantom's_ behavior, Monsieur."

"You were not foolish enough to tell him of our plans," prompted the manager.

Without turning, or feeling an ounce of guilt, Christine shook her head.

"Then this idiocy in the papers perhaps will only serve to make him curious," Firmin mused, more to himself than to Christine. "Surely he will come to investigate!"

This conversation was hurting her, but also making her passionately angry; and, no possessed of any wish to preserve a relationship with Firmin, she whirled on him again. "I do not know why you have come to _me_ for that reassurance, Monsieur," she snapped, "when you seemed to have all your movements coordinated completely. In fact, I am rather convinced that all you needed was my name to cement your plot – once you could promise that I would perform tonight, _I myself_ was incidental, was I not? So why have you come to me now? Did you expect encouragement?"

Firmin glared at her. "Frankly, my dear, I am inclined to agree with you; you proved to be far more trouble than you are worth, and I cannot claim disappointment that you will be taking your leave of us. All I have been denied is the opportunity of sacking you myself."

"You would have done it, wouldn't you?" she questioned, her tone even and angry. "After tonight you would have had no further _use_ for me, and would have sent me neatly away."

Smirking, he replied, "You _would_ have been rather a …liability." The word stung Christine, for she remembered the landlord who had once said the same of her. "But you are right about one thing – it was perhaps worth the risk of trusting you to draw out our clever friend. And though you seem surprisingly reluctant to agree with me, I am now quite convinced that he will attend this evening – so all will go ahead exactly as planned! Goodbye, my dear," he concluded facetiously, turning on his heel. "Charming speaking with you, as always."

Hours ago, Christine had felt certain that the Daroga would be all that was needed to keep Erik safe from the managers' clutches; but hearing Firmin's resolve made her own convictions falter. In that moment of weakness, she sprang after the departing manager and caught him by the elbow. "Monsieur," she gasped, "I know that it is asking much, but I beg of you – allow me to remain until the close of the curtain tonight. I shall find somewhere inconspicuous … I shall attract no attention and disrupt nothing …"

"Whatever for?" he asked, his voice full of skepticism and disdain. "When you seem so bent on destroying our plans, why would you ever want to see them brought to fruition? – for win we shall, my dear. Make no mistake about it!"

Blinking hard against tears, Christine answered with as much dignity as she could muster. "I cannot hope to make you understand," she said; "so let it remain at this: I want to be here when it happens. I _must_ bear that witness, Monsieur. Please."

He eyed her suspiciously for a moment, but finally tugged himself out of her grasp. "I am not a fool, Madame! You want to warn him! Well, we shall see about that … you are to leave here at once, do you understand? Just let yourself be seen here tonight – you shall be hauled off in chains all the same as your beloved Phantom!" And with that, he completed his departure, punctuating his threats with the sound of his agitated footsteps retreating down the hallway.

For quite some time Christine sat where she had crumpled, weeping into her hands and caring not one bit for all the curious passers-by who peeked through the door Firmin had left open to behold the Company's former leading lady tending her misery within. But finally, a dark-clad figure slipped through the door and closed it softly behind …

The sudden arrival of a visitor pulled Christine from sorrow into panic; but upon beholding her caller, every emotion but relief seemed to rush from her like water. "Madame Giry," she sighed, leaping to her feet and going at once to the arms of the stoic and strong ballet mistress.

The normally-somber Madame Giry embraced Christine briefly, inwardly aware of how alone the child must feel at this moment. She knew – of course, had always known the true method to the madness that had descended upon the Opera since Christine's return; but she had kept her knowledge silent, and her opinions to herself. Now, though, events had taken an unexpected turn; and she felt quite certain that everything had gotten quite out of proportion.

"Listen to me," she said finally, placing one firm hand on each of Christine's shoulders; "I have made no judgments concerning the rightness or wrongness of your actions – that lies between you and _him_ alone." Although she did not speak Erik's name, her intonation betrayed the object of her pronoun. "But I could not stand idly by and simply allow the managers to destroy a thing of beauty – for beautiful it is, Christine Daaé, regardless of the foundations upon which it was built. Now, take this."

With these words she pressed something cold and heavy into Christine's hand. Opening her fingers, she found the object was a key. "Madame Giry, please … I don't understand …"

"The key to Box Five," said the ballet mistress even as she slipped through the dressing room door. "The time has come for constancy, child … and for weathering the storm, I thought it as good a spot as any."

Staring at the key in her palm, Christine wondered for a moment what this could solve; but finally, a moment of clarity descended, and she realized her purpose. She raised her face to thank Madame Giry; but the older woman had disappeared as skillfully as Erik himself.

*

The curtain was to rise in a mere matter of minutes when Christine slipped out into the midst of the crowd on the Grand Tier. Hoping that the throng would provide ample cover, she nevertheless pulled the hood of the cloak, which she had pilfered from the props department, far down over her face and hurried amongst the crush as quickly as she could. Luckily, she seemed to evade notice as she pressed towards the end of the tier and slipped her ill-gotten key into the lock of Box Five, drew the door back swiftly and disappeared into its velvety darkness.

Although the house lights were already low, Christine hung towards the back of the box so as to avoid notice. It would never do for her to be seen here, for she was certain that the many gendarmes she had seem about the theatre would not think twice about shooting first and questioning later. Fumbling in the dark, she managed to lock the box door behind her, and made certain the small window-curtain was drawn. Finally she sank gingerly into the box's one armchair, conveniently located in the most shadowy portion of its interior.

The auditorium lights began their final diminuendo, and the sounds from the pit became more and more pronounced as the audience hushed itself. Behind her and through the locked door, Christine suddenly heard noises coupled with a voice that nearly made her heart stop for fright.

It was Firmin, and he seemed to be talking to a gendarme while hurrying down the corridor. "There is just one final item I must see to, sir, before the performance begins … ah, here we are. Box Five."

"Monsieur?" queried the policeman, obviously not a reader of _L'Epoque._

"This is "the Phantom's box," you see," answered Firmin impatiently; "and I simply wish to ascertain its emptiness. One can never be too sure."

"Of course," came the other man's reply; but his trying the door resulted in nothing more than a small rattling of the doorknob. "I beg your pardon, sir," said the officer, "but it will not open."

"What?" Firmin cried. "That's impossible – I have the key right here …"

Through the cracks around the door, Christine could hear Firmin scrabbling through his vast collection of keys in search of the one that would open Box Five. But much rattling later, he practically shouted, "Damn! It's gone!"

"Gone, Monsieur?" the gendarme questioned.

"_Oui_, gone," he repeated, obviously aggravated. "I thought for certain I put it here amongst the others …"

"Someone may have stolen it, sir," suggested the hapless guard. Hapless, for Firmin immediately vented his frustrations upon him.

"Impossible!" he snapped. "I never even had possession of the thing until this afternoon, when I relieved the Madame Giry of her burden."

"Forgive me, sir; I am only doing my job. Where is the she now?"

"Madame Giry," muttered the irritated manager, the rattling of his key-ring becoming more and more violent "is our ballet-mistress, and she is in the wings preparing her _petites rats_ to go on. I wonder if I could have left the damn thing in my office …"

"Shall I break the door in, sir?"

Christine heard the manager hesitate for a moment; but finally he seemed to think better of the suggestion. "No," he concluded, "I do not relish making such a scene now that the performance is beginning. It would attract too much attention. And I suppose that at least this ascertains the door is secure."

"A man may be stationed here if you so desire, Monsieur."

Again, Firmin sounded as though he was shaking his head. "But I wonder whether hewould use a door at all, now that I think of it … No," he said more loudly, "the men are better stationed behind the scenes and in the flies. Carry on."

His footsteps retreated down the corridor, and to Christine's relief the gendarme's also moved away presently. Soon enough darkness enveloped the whole theatre, and music began to flood the darkened box.

*

The last of the preparations were seen to, and by the middle of the first act Firmin was slipping into his own box, into the seat beside his partner.

"Here you are," André chided softly. "I was beginning to think that the ghost had got you."

"Do shut up, André," he muttered, finding his partner's humor to be poor and badly timed. "We will get him; you will see. I was simply making last-minute rounds … more than you have done this evening, I dare say."

"This was your affair from the start," was the prim reply. "I find the whole thing distasteful, and would far rather be here experiencing the music. It has begun quite well, Firmin, despite the absence of Mademoiselle Daaé. Why, perhaps even _because_ of it … the papers may have worked their magic again! Look." He offered his partner his opera glass.

Crossly, Firmin waved it away. "I checked with the box office before coming upstairs. It is true enough … sales increased this afternoon, and all the boxes taken – with the to-be-expected exception of that wretched Box Five."

"Whoever our ghost is, he is a connoisseur," remarked André, idly lifting his glass in the direction of the infamous box, "for it is one of the very best seats in the house …" But what his glass revealed in the shadows of the box made his voice trail off. "Upon my soul!"

Firmin nearly leapt from his chair. "What is it?"

"It looks like Mademoiselle Daaé!" breathed André, squinting to sharpen his vision. "Yes, I dobelieve it _is_!"

"Damn!" swore Firmin under his breath. "I should have known she would not listen. Where is she?"

André swatted off Firmin's hand as it reached for the opera glass. Peering through it, he attempted to analyze the expression of her face. There was something strange about it, but he could hardly make it out … "What do you mean, Firmin? Did you speak with her again after this morning?"

"I came upon her in the afternoon," was his short-tempered reply. "She wanted to stay to see the gala, and I told her if she knew what was good for her, she would be off at once. I might have known she would do something like this! Where is she, André? I shall send a gendarme to collect her at once …"

"I cannot think that her presence is really harmful," sighed André, finally surrendering the opera glass. "But I suppose if you insist … she has taken Box Five."

"What!" roared Firmim, seizing the tiny binoculars and clamping them to his face. "Oh, the presumption! So _that _is why the door was locked – but how the devil did she manage to steal the key?"

"What are you talking about?" André asked, turning a skeptical eye to his partner.

But just then, a commotion ensued that pushed the matter of Christine Daaé from their minds …

*

Erik had arrived at the theatre with the first of the rushing crowds, finding it relatively easy to skirt the foolish and wealthy of Paris as they fluttered and fawned over each other in the gathering dark. He had counted on being able to slip in through the door on the Rue Scribe; but as Nadir had warned, the gendarmes were everywhere, including the usually-empty thoroughfare behind the theatre. _How to get inside, then?_ He could never hope to slip through the front doors without a ticket …

The daring of it made Erik chuckle under his breath. Pulling his hat brim a bit farther down over his brow, he mounted the marble steps and strode with confidence in towards the Box Office.

"_S'il vous plaît_," he said in his most beguiling voice to the clerk behind the glass, "are there any good seats remaining for this evening?"

"N-not many, monsieur," stammered he, taken slightly aback at the unearthly beauty of this patron's voice. "But I believe I may still have something in the second balcony …"

"Hmm," Erik replied, smiling under the shadows of his hat. "Standing Room Only, then?"

The lilt in his voice filled the clerk with an unexpected desire to laugh. _What an affable, affective person, this stranger …_ "You seem to know the theatre well, Monsieur."

"Only well enough to know that the second balcony can offer no truly _good_ seats," said Erik, who was marveling at how easy this conversing with another person could be. "I would much rather lean against the rear wall of the first balcony, if you have reached that point in your sales for the evening …"

"For such a knowledgeable patron, any arrangement can be reached," replied the clerk cordially as he took Erik's proffered money.

Moments later, the former Phantom had slipped into the theatre in the guise of an attendee. Under any other circumstances he might have chuckled – it was all such a lark! – but he was uneasy, wondering what could be in store for him in the hours that approached. With the heavy police presence, it was more than likely that Nadir had been right – that he might pay for his impetuous and insistent hope with his fool neck.

_Well, if it is to be my last gala,_ he decided grimly, _there is only one seat in the house that will do …_

It took mere seconds and motions that now seemed second nature to Erik to slip away from the throng now crowding the theatre foyer and into one of his own secret passages. A keener eye than any gendarme's would have scarce have registered his disappearance … and though, as always, Madame Giry's lips were tightly sealed, they did deign to purse themselves into a smile. She had seen him work many wonders, both beautiful and terrible; but the simplicity and ingenuity of merely purchasing a ticket and strolling into the theatre was a new high-water mark in the Phantom's career.

The passage into which he had slipped led him presently to his usual entrance into Box Five: the point at which he could enter and ascend into the hollow column. Pausing for a moment, he marked the occasion – very likely this would be the last time he would ever attempt this feat, whether as the Phantom or under any other guise. But the climb was not a hard one, and presently he had made himself rather comfortable in his familiar and well-concealed private seat. Though the space through which he was to watch the performance was a small one, it nevertheless afforded an acceptable view … and perhaps he could slip out of the column as the night progressed, if he was feeling daring and if the managers had not been so rude as to sell his box … _and especially_, nagged his less optimistic side, _if Christine is to perform_ …

But just as the lights were beginning to dim, the sound of the box door opening and closing was followed immediately by the tangible presence of another person in the box. At first he was unable to see, for the intruder hung towards the back of the box; but, wanting to keep to the shadows, she shrank closer the column and enfolded the hidden Erik in a cloud of sensations that were all Christine. It could not be anyone else – her scent drifted to him even within his enclosed perch, he had long ago memorized the rustlings of her skirts … and it was not to be long before his vision could affirm what all his other senses had already known: Christine was here in Box Five. She nearly pressed herself against the column in her attempts to make herself invisible to those who were beginning to seat themselves in the theatre around her. Resting against the cool stone, she brought her cheek an unwitting mere inches from his own; he caught his breath at the powerlessness and awe that flooded him at the closeness of her.

How he had not known what to hope for tonight! – for there was no way of knowing for certain, now, what her actions truly meant. Even her presence in this box was a double-bind of sorts; for her attire and her secrecy seemed to support the rumor that she would not sing tonight, and the overheard conversation between Firmin and the gendarme from the corridor finally and fully confirmed the tale. And yet, under whose orders but the managers' could she gain admittance to Box Five? And why would she come here without their ordering it, knowing full well that if _he_ were to attend, this would most likely be his haunt …

What had brought her here? – deceit, design, or perhaps … _oh God, perhaps_ …

The house lights had all but faded now, and the smattering applause for the conductor over, the gala began. Slowly she began to creep around the column and Erik noticed, as he took in – yes, and cherished, he admitted it! – her profile, that a cloak hung loosely about her. It must have come from the props department, for it was cheaply made and ill-fitting and she struggled with its tasteless weight as she removed it and hung it on a hook near the door of the box. Although she presently lowered herself into his vacant armchair, her nervous glance still followed everywhere in the auditorium but the stage, and her body still seemed poised to spring up and flee at any moment. She moved hardly at all for nearly the entire first act, still retaining that same rigidity of posture and that same half-distracted, half-sorrowful air until Erik was nearly mad with anxious anticipation. What vigil was she holding here, and why could he not abandon the hope that her tension and her silence could translate into missing him …?

Why, nearly at the end of the first act, she suddenly began to speak Christine did not know for certain; it was something in the darkened theater, the vacant box yawning around her, the familiar scene that Erik had always inhabited and from whose emptiness he was not absent even now, that invited her voice. He would not be coming for her tonight – that was clear now, for though she had plumbed the darkness for hints of him she had discovered nothing to nourish the quickly-dwindling hope that he still wanted her. In the moment that she let that hope go, Box Five became a confessional, opening its arms as if to offer comfort in return for contrition.

"Forgive me, Erik" she whispered to the air around her, as though releasing the words into space would somehow purge her of their weight; "though I have no excuses, no reasons why you should. I know now that I alone am to blame … and that you must think me evil and ungrateful; for you forgave me so many foolishnesses, and still I have destroyed all that your love could have built. It made me ill to consent to all of this –" here a vague outward gesture attempted to take in the manager, the gala, all … "But I did it; and the sin committed, I tried to bury my guilt in your arms. That is all I have ever done – have tried to hide my shame and my shortcomings beneath the accepting darkness of your embrace. _You_ masked _me_, Erik, and I vainly forgot my own ugliness …" she shook her head futilely. "Always accepting, always forgiving – and I was so selfish, trying to convert your love into some semblance of security for myself. I thought that I could have it all … my career, the managers' support, your love … but when I found I could not have all, I chose poorly. Oh, Erik, you were right about me; I have been spineless and aimless, and have been nothing if not simply malleable ... I have allowed my destiny to be shaped by others' hands ..."

She drew a deep and stabilizing breath; she was trembling. "But I am not helpless now, my maestro – for I have finally done what you taught me, taken what control I could – and I wish you could see it, now that someone else has donned my costume and raised her voice in my stead! I wish you could hear it, could understand … that I love you more that my own weakness could ever permit me to express!"

From the orchestra below the music swelled, and behind the cover of its melody Christine choked back a sob. "Your safety from the managers is all I can ever hope to have a hand in now, I know; and though your absence wounds me to the very core, is all I have been wishing for since our last parting. I hope that you are far away, enveloped in the friendship of the Persian and in the beauty of some other music than mine. Oh, Erik, forget me … for though I have earned your hatred a thousand times over I cannot go on thinking of you, thinking ill of me. Do me that one last charity … forget me, and live …"

From within the safety of his hiding-place, Erik was paralyzed by the onslaught of emotion caused by Christine's words. He could not breathe, could not move; and the only hint of life in him was the warm trickle of tears beneath the mask. Her truth he could no longer doubt, for she could not be performing now – she knew nothing of her audience!

But he had known and believed in the truth of Christine's love before; and though he leaned his forehead against the column's cool stone interior he could not shock his senses into order. A thousand impulses warred within him – for though it seemed he had been led by destiny to overhear her confession, could he believe in the conviction she so convincingly expressed? She might very well mean the words; but could they be depended on? _Could_ he give her back his heart, so soon after she had nearly strangled it with betrayal and grief?

The answer, as much as he hated to admit it, had been there all the time … despite all the frantic beating of his mind against what seemed to be folly, despite reason and logic and all other faculties represented by his staunch friend Nadir, Erik could not deny that he loved her still. No matter the pain, the betrayal, or the misunderstanding – she had called out to him, and his soul obeyed.

"Then let us be charitable to one another," he said softly, for mingling pain and joy had left him feeling weak; as she turned, trying to locate the origin of his voice, the sudden beauty of her profile nearly overcame him.

"Erik?" she called out to him, casting her still-tearful gaze around the box. "Oh, my love - are you really here?"

"Forgiveness …" he repeated breathlessly. "Forgiveness and life – let us forgive one another, and live … together …"

"With all my heart," she sobbed, beginning to rise. "Please, Erik – let me see you!"

"Be still!" he commanded gently, his own dreaminess breaking with the sudden realization of danger; for he could sense how near she was to hysteria, and he felt certain that from across the Tier he had just seen the managers notice her presence in Box Five. "Christine, you are not safe here … neither of us is safe in this place any longer."

Instinctively, she turned and saw the managers alternately gazing at her through their opera glasses. "They have seen me," she whispered, fear rising like a sudden gorge in her throat. "Oh God – Erik, I have ruined everything …they will send someone to break in the door …"

"No, my beloved," was his soft reply. A plan was forming in his brain … "We can still foil their plot – but I believe I have earned a condition of my own."

Her answer was impassioned. "Anything," she said emphatically, though she tried to keep her lips still. It was bad enough they had seen her – now if they saw her speaking to an unseen companion …!

Erik's heart was nearly in his throat, but he spoke on. "I know my words were angry at our last parting – but I can bear separation from you no more than I can breathe without air. If you would prove to me that you love me, come away with me tonight. Our pasts are full enough of Paris – I want to go out into the world again, Christine, and I want you at my side!"

He saw her tears falling in profile, for she sat half-turned from where he was hidden, facing the front of the box for fear of the managers' scrutiny. "My love," she whispered, eyes closed and hands clasped as if in prayer; "your condition and my dearest wish are one and the same …"

From the pit, music poured to fill the emotion-fraught silence. Finally Erik spoke, his voice trembling faintly with the force of his joy: "Christine – there is nothing I want more than to hold you … but there are too many eyes fixed on this box." Faintly, but clear enough for his understanding, she nodded her agreement. "Let me leave you for a moment then, my love – for I think some mischief is the only way I can divert their attention."

"Mischief?" The word seemed to make her uncomfortable; her brow furrowed.

"Remember that there _is_ a Phantom of the Opera," he replied almost glibly. "I promise you no one will be hurt. Stay exactly where you are …"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a panel in the box wall slide back; from it Erik's arm emerged, and pulled from its hook into the darkness within the borrowed cloak. Without turning, for fear any more movement might give him away, she set her lips into an expression of conviction and gave another small nod to indicate her consent. "Hurry back to me, Erik."

"Nothing of this earth can keep me from you, Christine …" he whispered, drawing off into the darkness.

*

Though his progress through the hidden corridors of the wings was swift, it was not without purpose; and presently he found his quarry just inside the curtain line, observing her _corps de ballet _with an ever-exacting eye. "Madame Giry," he whispered in her ear through one of his old vocal tricks – for he was some ten feet from her side at least, and well-concealed behind a hidden panel in the backstage wall.

Madame Giry whirled as if to face him, and seemed indignant as she realized his deception. "Monsieur," was her low but firm reply, "these low tricks never did become you. At least do me this courtesy – speak with me face to face."

Despite himself, Erik found himself chuckling. "My faithful friend, nothing would give me more pleasure than to honor that request; but you must understand that, given the current state of affairs, such politeness is quite impossible."

The ballet-mistress considered for a moment but at last gave a small nod of agreement. "Even _this_ is not safe," she murmured, casting a glance to either side. "Perhaps I can slip away unnoticed …"

"No, there is no time," he insisted. "Hear me, my dear Madame, for there is much I must do if I am to escape this place with my life – and with Christine's. I know the hand you had in bringing our paths together tonight, and I assure you that when all this is done I shall make the depths of my gratitude known to you. But until then, I beg of you – in the name of our long friendship, do me one last favor …"

It took only a moment for Madame Giry to nod assent and for Erik to explain himself. Once that moment was passed, each set off on their separate way: he onward and upwards to the flies, and she out of the wings and up the Grand Escalier with another box-key hidden in her hand.

*

Swiftly and silently, Erik made his way through the corridors and catwalks that led him into the flies, easily evading the few gendarmes he glimpsed holding watch there. It was quite fortunate, he mused, that these officers had not the first clue what exactly it was they were watching _for_; and they were too distracted by the typical noises of the theatre – the thumping feet of cast and crew echoing through its many passages and the sounds of shifting scenery – to notice a lithe black-cloaked shadow ascending into the regions of the above-stage where only the nimble feet of the stagehands dared to tread.

There, amongst the many ropes, wires, pulleys and other contraptions used to manipulate the scene on stage, Erik found what he was seeking. He had used the gas-pipes, whose primary function was to light the theatre, many times before to carry the sound of his voice throughout the auditorium. He had even tested each pipe's potential, to the end of discovering where it could carry sound. Running his fingers almost affectionately over them, he paused for a moment to gather himself for one final performance as the Phantom of the Opera; then, drawing a deep breath, he began to work his old magic.

Down below, the audience quickly forgot the ballet onstage as a disembodied voice seemed to dart about the auditorium. "I'm here," it whispered from the aisle right of center, and every head in Orchestra turned to see who would be so rude as to speak during the performance. But no one was there – and just as soon as they had discovered it their attention was attracted in the opposite direction, this time at the very lip of the pit. "My dear friends," the voice seemed to laugh at their consternation. "Can't you see me?" Now it seemed to be coming from several directions at once; those seated on the First Tier directed their gaze upward to the Grand Tier, while _those_ patrons searched the center Orchestra section for the origin of the disturbance. A murmur began to rise from the audience, and several patrons angrily called for an usher; but the ushers were just as frightened, turning their heads from side to side and going white about their faces, knowing all too well what this strange occurrence foreboded.

"Oh, but of course you can't," the voice spoke again, louder this time and growing louder by the syllable. "Am I here?" it called from the very midst of a box on the Grand Tier, sending its occupants starting out of their chairs. "Or here?" from the stage itself, scattering the ballet rats in all directions in a flurry of shrieks and skirts. "Or here!" it rained down from high above, and every eye widened in fear and thought for certain that they saw the famed chandelier shift ever so slightly!

Knowing full well that the chandelier had not moved at all – for he was nowhere near its counterweights, and besides would never have even considered performing the same trick twice! – Erik laughed as the sounds of the growing agitation reached him. Resonating through the pipes and amplifying as it bounced about the auditorium, it left little doubt in the minds of all present – it could only be the Phantom of the Opera's famous laughter! The murmur from the seats began to rise into a muffled din, and though he could not see them, he was certain the managers were on their feet, hands on the upholstered balustrade of their private box, staring out over the auditorium in impotent outrage. But Erik laughed on, for he had only just begun …

Swiftly he raced across a catwalk that ran the length of the stage, and selecting a large sandbag serving as a counterweight to a piece of scenery, he fastened to it the long dark cloak Christine had purloined from the props department. Laughing now in self-satisfaction, he gave the makeshift dummy a mighty heave and sent it swinging like a huge pendulum across the stage. Entering from stage right, it seemed to the discomfited audience that the Phantom himself was flying back and forth across the scene! Those hardy members of the cast who had remained onstage in attempt to maintain order ran screaming now as the black-cloaked figure came streaming towards them, disappeared into the wings at stage left, and returned on its own momentum for another pass. Several among the gendarmes, all of whom had come running to the auditorium when the commotion reached their ears, panicked and leveled their weapons at the moving target. "No!" shouted André, watching in horror from his box; "don't shoot!" But the guards misheard the command, and gunfire erupted from several points inside the auditorium, filling it with smoke from spent powder and the pressing bodies of now-hysterical patrons.

Amidst this cacophony of disorder, Erik slipped silently back through passages and corridors that led him once again into the hollow column of Box Five. The mere touch of a switch reopened the door in the box's paneled wall, and he stepped out of the shadows into the waiting presence of his beloved Christine.

Her eyes widened at the suddenness of his reappearance; but the sight of him pushed all other cares from her mind and she threw herself into his waiting arms. "Oh, Erik – I am so desperately sorry!" she sobbed into his shirtfront.

How long he could have stood and held her there, the pure joy of that embrace muting all the sounds of chaos around them! But he contented himself – for now – with the fleeting sensation of her body clasped tightly to his, and hurried her through the secret door and into the safety of a hidden corridor.

Across the Tier, the managers were coming round from their shock and beside themselves for a way to calm the disorder that was swarming all around them. Firmin was leaning over the lip of their box, shouting in colorful language down into Orchestra for the gendarmes to hold their fire. André, meanwhile, attempted to rush out into the corridor to stay the mob of frightened patrons … attempted, but failed; for though he pulled on the door with all his strength, it would not yield to him.

"Firmin!" he cried over his shoulder; "the door will not open!"

"What!" he shouted, whirling on his partner with wild eyes. Soon they both were beating on the door; but despite their combined efforts, it was shut fast. "It must be locked!" lamented André. "But how? Has there ever _been_ a key?"

Firmin turned from André and the door in exasperation. "All this damned business with keys!" he muttered. Moving to the box-rail, he leaned over and searched the rapidly developing pandemonium below for a gendarme to signal for help. But as his eye traveled over the theatre, a sudden flicker of white attracted his eye to Box Five, and he let go a sudden and vicious expletive for the lack of a pistol.

Standing towards the back of the box was a man whom Firmin had only ever seen but once, though he had hunted him ceaselessly since. With an expression that suggested a smile – though the mask concealed too much of his face to be certain – the Phantom regarded the chaos he had created. Unable in his rage to believe the very audacity of the man, it was all Firmin could do to reach back and tug on André's sleeve.

André brushed Firimin's searching hand away. "Let me alone, Firmin. What are you waiting for – call for help!"

"Turn around, André," replied Firmin in a voice so terrible he could scarce disobey. André turned and joined his partner at the rail in time to observe the Phantom's observation of them.

Erik could hardly believe his luck at being able to have the last laugh, so to speak, before the managers' very eyes. The nimble fingers of Madame Giry had locked them in their box at his request, to cause them a bit of embarrassment; but until now he had not considered the possibility of it making them a captive audience to his final exit_. The dramatic opportunity must not be missed!_

Once certain he had their full attention, he spread his arms and swept them a deep bow of deference and farewell. "Gentlemen," he smiled, employing his ventriloquist's art to place his voice directly between the two beflustered managers; "I thank you for all your very kind hospitality." Then, reaching up towards the cord which gathered back the curtains which hung to one side of the box, he loosed it and let the velvet fall, concealing from them his speedy departure through the secret door.

With the current state of disorder in the theatre, it was quite easy for a well-dressed, if not somewhat mysterious, dark-cloaked gentleman to pull his hat brim down over his face and escort his lovely lady-companion through the anxious crowd. The gendarmes were too preoccupied, between pulling down what they had now discovered to be a dummy-Phantom and attempting to break down the door to the managers' box, to stand guard at the doors; and so the pair slipped out unnoticed by all but Madame Giry. The ballet-mistress also noticed that Erik's arm, in a gesture of mingled protection and possessiveness, never left Christine's waist; and that, despite the chaos around her, the young soprano's smile was beaming-bright.

Outside the Opera, the plaza was filled with panicked patrons stopping at nothing to get a cab. All things considered, it was perhaps understandable that no one noticed the two elegantly dressed figures slipping away, arm-in-arm and on foot, in the direction of the Tuileries.

*

In his flat on the Rue d'Rivoli, Nadir was in quite a state.

After – reluctantly – seeing Erik off on what he felt certain was a mission of pure suicide, he had spent the past several hours attempting to forget his worry by engaging in normal routine. It felt like a betrayal to remain closeted at home while the goings-on at the Opera were likely to alter the course of his friend's life; but Erik had made it quite clear that he _would_ go alone, and frankly Nadir was irritated at him for his constant risking of his neck for the fickle favor of Mlle. Daaé. Halfheartedly, he took his dinner at home, and had intended to settle down in the parlor with tea and Erik's somewhat disheveled newspaper; but now that plan had been quite thwarted by his other house-guest.

Liking as cats often do the sensation of paper, Ayesha had made herself quite comfortable upon the remains of _L'Epoque_. The Daroga let slip a Persian oath and wished, not for the first time since having retrieved her from the Opera, that he did not so dislike cats. He hated to have to touch the creature; just remembering carrying her back to the flat in his arms made his skin crawl! But steeling his courage, Nadir began his campaign to regain the newspaper by gingerly tugging on one of its corners. Ayesha opened one piercing eye and fixed him with a look of mild irritation, then closed it and resumed her nap.

"Damned beast," he muttered. "Won't you move?"

"Nadir!" boomed Erik's voice from the doorway behind him. "I am surprised at you – can I deserve such a welcome?"

His apparent good humor caught the Daroga's ear immediately; and he turned, a smile forming on his lips, to remark upon his friend's early return from the Opera. But the sight that met his eyes made that smile disappear …

Erik stood with one hand upon the door frame, his face bearing a grin that seemed lopsided because of the constant placidity of the mask; yet he was glowing with a tangible happiness clearly attributable to Christine Daaé, whose fine eyes and pearly teeth sparkled at the Daroga over his friend's shoulder. She too seemed happy, and beautiful with a mist of fine rain glinting in her curls. It sparkled too on Erik's black cashmere; to the untrained eye they were a well-to-do couple, too in love to mind being caught in a drizzle on their walk home from the theatre.

But Nadir's eye was quite trained in the ways of Erik and Christine Daaé, and he was more than merely suspicious; his heart sank to the very soles of his polished leather boots. He could only guess what had transpired at the Opera, but it had clearly resulted in some kind of reconciliation – the second-worst outcome Nadir could have imagined for this evening, following Erik's falling into the management's clutches.

"No," he said softly, shaking his head. "Perhaps not that _particular_ welcome …"

Erik seemed to ignore this remark and ushered his companion inside. "Dear Christine," he said sweeping an arm towards the Daroga, "I believe you have met my old friend Nadir."

"Monsieur," said she breathlessly, moving forward with her arm extended. "I hope that _we_ may be as good friends …"

But for the second time that day, Nadir regarded but refused to take Christine's hand. "Mademoiselle," he responded, though his tone was far from cordial.

But while this chilly exchange was taking place, Erik had returned briefly to the hallway for a small valise, which they had managed to retrieve from Christine's dressing room before leaving the Opera at last. It swung lightly in his grip as he turned to close the door behind him; and when he once again faced the Daroga his smile had not yet diminished. "I have taken the liberty of inviting Christine for a visit, Nadir."

"I see," replied the Persian flatly.

His tone seemed to jolt Erik from the height of his humor, and he looked immediately to Christine. The young woman was watching the scene unfold around her with wide eyes and an obvious deflated expression. Moving immediately to her side, Erik took her small hand in his gloved one and glanced at his friend with skepticism. "It is no inconvenience, I hope. You understand, of course, that nowhere else is safer for her at the moment …"

"Of course." Nadir turned neatly from the couple and opened the door to his own bedchamber. "The accommodations are spare but adequate, Mademoiselle; and I trust you will allow me to give up my own room to you."

Erik's eyes were now firmly fixed on Nadir, and the smile he had so recently worn had dissolved into a grim set of the jaw. Christine glanced back and forth between the two men, and despite the Persian's superficial cordiality was not taken in. She was unwelcome here …

"I would not wish to put you out, Monsieur," she stammered. In a lower voice, she ventured to Erik, "Perhaps we'd better go …"

"No," was his firm reply as he guided her towards the open bedroom door. "Make yourself comfortable, my dear. In his excitement to know what has happened this evening, Nadir has forgotten his manners; that's all. Go and unpack your things, and I shall tell him what he longs to hear."

Reluctantly, Christine allowed Erik to urge her into the adjacent room and close the door behind her. But the moment it was shut to, the veneer of gentleness fell away from him, and he whirled on Nadir with the old fire burning in his eyes. "Damn it, Daroga – what is it now?"

The Persian was, as always, not quite prepared for the heat of Erik's anger. Turning his shoulder towards its full force, he gave a somewhat halfhearted answer. "I was not expecting _her_ – that is all."

"No," Erik contradicted, crossing the room in a few long strides and, with a hand to Nadir's shoulder, forced him to face him. "We will not play this game again, Nadir. Tell me at once what the matter is."

With a sigh, Nadir passed a hand across his forehead. "I am sorry, Erik. I just cannot help this feeling of impending disaster. The first time you opened yourself to her, she married the Vicomte! And then, this time … need I remind you? You have only just escaped the trap set by her handiwork! …"

Erik caught a note of hesitation in this last remark. "You want to know how we did it, don't you?"

Nadir crossed his arms and made a sound of irritation. "That is not the point; and I'm sure I don't need to ask. I'm sure it shall cover the front page of tomorrow's _L'Epoque_."

"Perhaps you shall," Erik replied coolly. "It was perhaps my best performance ever."

"What have you done!" demanded the Daroga, suddenly laying a hand to each of Erik's lapels; "what have you done to get her back again, Erik?"

"Why can't you believe us capable of change?" demanded Erik in turn. "Enlighten me, Nadir – tell me why we are trapped forever in those roles in your mind! Why is it she must always be untrustworthy, and I a monster!"

The intensity of this accusation caught Nadir by surprise. "I have never called you a monster."

"No, but you insinuated as much! No one was hurt tonight – I took pains to ascertain it."

"I am sure you did," replied the Daroga softly. "But what have I to draw from, Erik, but my own experience, when you communicate nothing? You brought her here without warning or explanation …"

"How could I warn you?" Erik persisted. "I had no way of knowing how this evening would progress … even now I can barely believe it myself. And _had_ I known … it would have made no difference, would it? For you berated me for even tending a hope!"

Nadir shook his head. "It was not intended as a reproof, Erik – I was concerned for you. I still am."

"Then be concerned," he cried, "but let me be! Are you that selfish with my attentions, Nadir, so as to insist that I mistrust her still? I cannot believe that this is a mistake – I believe in Christine as much as I have ever believed in music … or in _you_, or in anything else infinitely dear to me." The sudden expression of emotion felt awkward to them both, and for a moment neither spoke. But finally Erik concluded: "By God, Nadir – I _want_ this. Tonight she would have me believe I have earned her love … and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise."

As he internalized the verbal blows Erik aimed so expertly at him, the Daroga could only nod in acquiescence. Then, with lips set in resignation, he turned to the mantel and retrieved the brandy decanter. "Tell me what happened tonight, Erik."

A few sips of the strong liquor eased Erik's tension and loosed his tongue. For what seemed hours the voice of the master story-teller rose and fell as it related its greatest tale yet: one of wrongs turned right, of lessons learned and of sins forgiven. And when his voice stilled, Nadir extended his hand to his friend in a gesture of sincere apology.

"My room is large enough for two," he said softly, tipping his chin slightly towards the bedroom door. But even as he did so, Christine Daaé came rushing through it. Though Nadir had suspected the young woman might be eavesdropping, her entrance caught them both off guard; and nothing could have prepared them for her next actions.

"You are kind, Monsieur," she said, falling suddenly to her knees before Nadir, "and yet I know that you do not trust me. But rightly so – I have done little to deserve it – but at least let me offer this plea." She reached for Erik's hand, and he attempted to draw her to her feet; but she turned her face back to the Daroga, and spoke on. "You have loved Erik longer, and perhaps better than I; but I swear to you that I shall spend the rest of my life correcting those old mistakes. And if he can give me the chance to do so, I pray you can find it in your heart to do the same …"

For the second time that day, Nadir could not help but perceive a ring of sincerity in her voice. And with Erik standing so near, cradling her small white hand in his broad strong one … he could not fight them both. Bowing low, he took her other hand in his; and guiding her to her feet, he placed that hand into Erik's. "Forgive me, child, my long-standing grudge; and know that it was not cruelly meant. You are right – I have watched over Erik for many years. But far be it from me to contradict his judgment." With a significant glance at his friend, he said to her, "Accept my apology, my dear – and my hospitality. Would you care for a cup of tea?"

With only her limited knowledge of the Daroga, Christine was uncertain what to make of this sudden change in him. But at her side, Erik threw his head back and filled the tiny flat with the broad echoing peals of his laughter.

"The Daroga has regained his manners," he remarked to his beloved, moving towards the samovar; "so perhaps we had best accept his offer."

*

Although Nadir pressed them through a sense of friendly obligation to stay with him longer, Erik gently declined. A few short days passed and then the two were off, slipping quietly from Paris once the hubbub of the morning after the gala had blown over. _L'Epoque_ did attempt a daring exposé, but with the paper's already-firmly-established reputation for scandal and speculation, no one seemed to notice.

Erik told Nadir that they were bound for a grand tour of Europe, but in truth they had no real plans. He had traveled much of the continent, but Christine had little first-hand knowledge of it; and he was amused with the idea of unfolding the world before his beloved like a magician, of spreading his hands and making the glory of nations appear. In the end they left the comfort of Nadir's flat on the Rue d' Rivoli for the splendor of the Alps; and after a leisurely but chilly sojourn in Geneva they passed over the mountains and southward towards the warmth of the Mediterranean.

There the arms of Italy waited for them in welcome; and with each step he took into the sunshine Erik seemed to grow bolder. Whether it was inspired by love or a reawakening of his instinctive wanderlust mattered little to Christine, for simply to see him moving like a man relieved of his burdens gave wings to her heart. She reveled in the change in him, and cherished the small moments when he surprised her with his sudden and irrepressible charm. In Venice he was in rare form, treating her to a midnight serenade in a rented gondola; when she lifted a light blanket from the boat's bottom to spread across her lap in the slight chill of evening, she discovered a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

"You already wear my ring, Christine," he said almost shyly, coming down beside her and winding his arm around her waist; "now be my wife. I know a lovely cathedral in Florence …"

Under the moonlight and in her strange angel's arms, Christine could not help but laugh for joy. A few weeks later they stood in that cathedral and pledged their troth before the bishop.

But not many nights after their wedding, Christine woke Erik well after midnight with a sobbing that threatened to rend her entire form in two. He gathered her into his arms, but as he pressed a kiss to her temple he discovered that she was still asleep despite the grief which had seized her. Gently, he spoke to her and rubbed her wrists, but it took some time for him to bring her out of her deep slumber.

"Erik," she finally choked through her tears. "Did I wake you?"

"Hush, my love," he murmured, pulling her back into his arms. "It is nothing. Can you tell me why you're crying?"

"I was dreaming," she responded vaguely, as if she said so more to convince herself that it was not real, than to relate it to him. "I was dreaming of my father …"

Instantly Erik became concerned. "Do you often?" he questioned softly, wiping away her tears with the pads of his thumbs.

Sniffling, she nodded. "But never like this."

"Tell me," he said, running his hand down the length of her spine as he often did for Ayesha when something had startled her. "How was it different?"

Sighing, she leaned her head against the warm wide expanse of his chest. "I see him often in my dreams … but always as though he were still with me, as though he were still alive. But this time …" Her voice faltered, and tears threatened to resume. "This time it was more a vivid memory than a dream – it was as though it was the night he died … and I saw his face more clearly than I have seen it in years …"

He cradled her in his arms as one would a sad child, doing all he could with gentle touches to comfort her. But his swift mind could not help working about what she was saying … "Were you there with him that night, my love?"

She raised her eyes to meet his, wondering what he could mean. "The night he died? Yes, I was there … and it was terrible … I have tried never to think of it since!"

Erik's fingers were now running fluid circuits through her hair. "Then perhaps that is why he sent this dream to you, Christine – you have spent years grieving for him, trying to dream him alive again. But these dreams are the stuff of the past ... And now, you and I have passed a great milestone together; we have pledged a life together. Just think of it, my love – we have begun a future! So perhaps your father has brought this sad memory back to you to remind you – he is gone, and you must let him go, if you are ever to move forward from yesterday into tomorrow."

Despite her sorrow, Christine could not help the small smile that began to tweak at the corners of her mouth. "Erik – to what can this sudden philosophy tend? You are a genius, a musician, a composer, an architect and inventor … and now a soothsayer, a psychic and interpreter of dreams?"

"Don't laugh," he chided her lightly. "I do know something of it, from the time I spent with the gypsies."

"Gypsies?"

He looked down into her face and saw that her grief had been momentarily forgotten in favor of an expression of curiosity. "Of course," he replied swiftly. "Did you think I sprang from a forgotten score in the basements of the Opera?"

"I know nothing of your history," she replied with wide eyes; "only the shreds you have revealed to me in passing."

He knew what she was saying to be truth; there was much he had never spoken of, to her or to another living soul. "I had a mother," he whispered, closing his eyes, "and a father, same as you; and I had a childhood, and a youth, though they were not as idyllic as yours."

She pressed her body closer to his, for in his voice she could sense him pulling away into himself. "Tell me," she implored him.

"What – of the gypsies?"

"Yes, of the gypsies – and of your youth, and childhood, and everything else besides … I want to know your past, Erik. I want to know _you_."

With a sigh, he tightened his arm around her waist. "The hour is rather late to begin such a tale."

"I am awake," she assured him, "and listening."

For a moment, he said nothing, only pored over her face with an expression of mingling sorrow and devotion. But finally, in a voice that was small and foreign to him, he began to speak.

"I never knew my father. He died before I was born … and I think that, even had I been born a normal child, my mother would have hated me for that – for being a memory." He shook his head at Christine's expression of sympathy. "No – please, let me to tell it."

"I was born in France, in a house in the country, a tiny place called Bocherville … and it was in that house I spent every day of my childhood. But in the winter of my ninth year, I ran away …"

Though many hours passed, he told it all – he thought of Javert for the first time in years, and spoke of Giovanni and Luciana for the first time in his life. He spoke of how he had come to know Nadir, and the horrors he had known in the deadly-beautiful land of Mazanderan. Through it Christine was silent, holding his hand or simply resting her cheek against his chest, feeling it rise and fall and treasuring the vibrations passing through his skin to hers as he spoke. He spared her no detail, and she wept when he spoke of his return to France, of the last time he had entered the house in Bocherville.

"… and when the Opera was completed – well, I suppose you know the rest," he concluded hours later.

Nodding, she drew closer. "Thank you, my love," she whispered against his lips, still damp from her kiss. "Thank you."

They continued their tour of Europe, though Christine's vision was tinted with a new light; every place they visited she wondered if he had been there before, what he had seen and felt there. She wanted to purge every inch of the continent of the terrible memories it held for him, to infuse it with a new joy.

For him, merely having her at his side accomplished that and more.

In Rome she asked him, with gentle pressure to his hand, to show her Giovanni's house. Many years had passed, and that entire section of city had been pulled down and rebuilt; but he did take her to the small parish cemetery he had sought out the last time he had been in Rome. Together, they prayed at the graves for whose keep he had left a great sum of money with the sexton all those years ago. Silently, Erik thanked his surrogate father for the lessons which had helped him become a man – a man worthy of his beloved Christine.

As for herself, Christine said a prayer of gratitude that God should have blessed Giovanni with the grace to care for Erik – and one of empathy for the young Luciana who, like herself, had struggled to know the proper way to love him.

After Rome came Athens; and thence north and west to Vienna, Berlin, Brussels … soon there was not a nation in Europe or the adjacent regions of Africa and Asia that had not unfurled its colors before them. For a few glorious years there was nothing to detract their attentions from each other, or to infringe upon their happiness.

But the Twentieth Century was not to remain idyllic, and before it was fifteen years old the Great War had ripped the continent apart. By that time they had settled in the English countryside, and so the immediate effects of the horrors never touched them; and once it was over, and the world had breathed a collective sigh of relief, Erik found his own place in it had shifted somewhat. The atrocities of this new kind of warfare had changed the world, and suddenly the placid expression of the white half-mask was no longer as shocking as it once had been.

For her part, Christine felt called to do what good she was able; and though she never left the protective circle of Erik's arms for the ravages of the battlefield, before the war was over she had become a skilled nurse. Though many men owed their recovered health to her capable hands, she dedicated most of her time to the compassionate care of those veterans who have been left disfigured by chemicals and other horrors.

It was, at first, very difficult for Nadir to watch Erik and Christine disappearing into the world hand-in-hand; but as the years passed, Christine began through her actions to prove a developing sense of maturity – and a depth of love for his old friend that reminded him keenly of the long-ago precious moments he had once shared with Rookheya. When Paris became vulnerable to the Germans the Persian and his faithful Darius made the journey to stay with the couple for a while; and there Nadir was forced to confront – and pull down – his long-standing bias towards Christine Daaé. The peace and love that filled their house was far too tangible for even the cynical Daroga to deny.

"You know I am no Christian, Erik," said he softly to his friend one evening over brandy; "but I _do_ know that even Doubting Thomas eventually believed."

Erik's hand felt both heavy with solidarity and light with joy as he placed it on Nadir's shoulder.


End file.
